A reflection on laziness

In an interesting book of the mid 19th century, Scottish author and editor Samuel Smiles describes and expounds upon what some have labelled the gospel of hard work. Entitled Self-Help (1855), the book begins with an elucidation of principles (excerpt here), followed by numerous stories of how industry and labor made the reputations and fortunes of artists, scientists, industrialists, and many others of the preceding century. I often find the book invigorating, useful for summoning motivation and energy to do a difficult task. Yet for all the value one derives from hard work, I find at times the need to arrest this tendency to labor, and for a time become lazy and content with everything as it is. One may argue the contrary,of course, but my experience suggests there is value both in laziness and labor, each in their season - and that a person who knows how to work but not relax is as disadvantaged as one who knows how to relax but not to work. 

Consider the utility of sleep, an activity which all animals appear to need. While outwardly a person may look idle, a great many things of value are going on inside. For example, one research study found extended sleep correlated with increased alertness and reduced pain sensitivity. Both traits proved useful for individuals suffering from chronic pain conditions, or those preparing to enter surgery.  Another study from the University of Tübingen suggests sleep helps children "transform sub-consciously learned material into active knowledge;" that in other words, the development of explicit knowledge is supported by processes at work during sleep. Finally,  University of Lancaster researchers Ut Na Sio, Padraic Monaghan and Tom Ormerod found in a study last year that a group of sleepers solved more complex problems than those who tried solving them while awake. Both groups solved simpler problems in comparable numbers, but the trends diverged as the complexity of the problems increased. Attempting to explain these results, Padraic Monaghan states:

"We've known for years that sleep has a profound effect on our ability to be creative and find new solutions to problems. Our study shows that this sleep effect is greatest when the problems facing us are difficult. Sleep appears to help us solve problems by accessing information that is remote to the initial problem, that may not be initially brought to mind. Sleep has been proposed to 'spread activation' to the solution that is initially distant from our first attempts at the problem. The advice stemming from this and related research is to leave a problem aside if you're stuck, and get some sleep if it's a really difficult problem."

The benefits of sleep seem numerous and understood increasingly by the day, yet that does not prevent it from acquiring shades of a lazy reputation. For example, Proverbs 19:15 reads, "Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger." In English, we have the idiom "burning the candle at both ends," which roughly means working late into the night, and again early the next morning - in other words, crowding out sleep to work more. Based on the stories he tells in Self-Help, I have no doubt Samuel Smiles would have approved of this use of candles. As we have seen, however, time spent asleep is not time wasted, and does seem to have a vital function. Yet for those who have difficulty winding down, sleep does not come easy. Anxiety, stress, and an insufficient capacity to relax all appear to reduce the amount and quality of this wholesome activity, and in time makes us less productive rather than more. 

But judging a thing by its capacity to improve productivity seems a narrow perspective from which to render value. At different times, hard work and easy-goingness both seem to contribute to our sense of well-being. For example, if I have a task that needs to get done (a paper to write, a room to clean, or an application to finish), hard work more than laziness serves to put my mind at ease. Even if I leave the task only half-completed, the start provides positive feed-back that often makes finishing the task easier. On the other hand, taking an idle approach to these sorts of problems only makes them  grow, at least in my own mind, and may lend credence to Samwise Gamgee's line in The Fellowship of the Ring, "It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish."

Again, one would probably find Smiles nodding with agreement; in a go-go society like our own, we hear arguments like this all the time. But sometimes it may be better to do too little rather than too much. According to Kenny Moore in Bowerman and the Men of Oregon (2006), this idea served as the "credo" of Bowerman's coaching philosophy, that it was "...better to underdo than overdo," and that a coach should train "individuals, not teams" (p. 91).   

A little laziness can keep us from overdoing. It can provide a respite from the unforgiving schedule of ceaseless labor. Too often we hear laziness derided as a pure vice, a thing to be avoided at all costs; as the saying goes, "the devil finds work for idle hands." But a tendency to idle can become a moment to think, to reflect, or to recover. It can be a way to save ourselves from our own and others' abstract notions of what is good. And yes, it can be to our detriment too. But so can a tendency to always be at work. Perhaps to work one must rest, and to rest one must work - a two sided coin whose sides are not given equal shrift. Perhaps each has its place, in its own season and time.

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."

-Ecclesiastes 3:1

"Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner."

-Tao-Te-Ching