I am not known as a lazy person. In fact, once I get working on a given day I often don’t even think to stop for a meal. But what I think is that I have been lazy in my approach to life and, by seldom doing anything that I don’t inspect very closely, I think I have learned some things about that kind of laziness. Actually, that last statement needs amending. I think that I have learned some things about what I experience as laziness. It may not be what another person experiences as laziness. Theirs may be a pure, more essential form, (as in more of the essence of), of laziness in which case I bow to their greater experience and the clarity of their opinion. Still, here are some things that I have learned.
Not all laziness conforms to the classic concept. Certainly not in the cause. That is because if we aren’t lazy we don’t spend any time thinking about it and if we are, then assuming we are on a spiritual path, we are usually disinclined to explore the reality of it. Never-the-less the fact that someone doesn’t want to work is a simplistic explanation that begs the question: WHY does someone not want to work? In my experience there are multiple causes for laziness. I will get to mine in a moment but the root cause of mine was exacerbated by a sense of resentment against God because I wanted to do my spiritual path without effort and I resented everything that I considered I was required to do. I wanted a magic pill. Another reason for my recalcitrance was that everything I tried to do in the physical world was untypically hard. There are reasons that all combined to make that so.
The first reason was my autism. Every autistic person is different. I suspect that is why it is called a spectrum disorder. One problem I have always has was in transferring information from visual to actual. I could read blueprints but I couldn’t translate them into the activity of building so I was severely handicapped in ‘the trades’.
The second reason was astrological. I have 15 squares in my natal chart. For those of you who accept the reality of astrology a square is a point of opposition and that often translated into strange ways of derailing whatever I was involved in. Having 15 of them has made for quite a ride.
The third reason was that I was born into an intellectual environment rather than a trade-oriented family. I was nurtured in an environment that encouraged an interest in English, History, Science, etc. but with no ability to encourage an interest in woodworking, auto mechanics and what is often referred to as “the trades”. I certainly never took shop in high school.
Finally, my grandfather, who was a doctor, told my mother not to get too attached to me because I was probably not going to ‘make it’. I wasn’t miserably sick but no one could hold me for any period of time without me throwing up on them for the first three years of my life. That means I did not receive very much 'tactile stimulation' that has been shown to be so important to a person's ability to emotionally connect with others later in life. In addition, I was the fifth child in five years at a time when there were no pampers and my mother had 3 children in cloth diapers. There were no dryers so my mother had to hang the laundry out in high humidity every day. She was quite busy.
However, in my case all of that begs the question. What is the root cause of my laziness? I was, (and am when I am not paying attention), jealous of my time. In my egos' paradigm I view doing things – working – as somehow robbing me of my time. This is not out front in my consciousness. I have had to struggle to see where the root of this issue has been hiding but with some rigorous introspection I have come to that. What I haven't come to is the answer to why I should feel that way. At times that question is vital. At other times it is not so important. In this case it may, for all I know, be a momentum I have carried over from a past lifetime. It may not. But I can address it without knowing the root so long as I own the being the source.
Now you might think that this is me whining about all of this but that would be incorrect. You also might wonder what is the point to all of this given that this blog is supposed to be a spiritual primer. The point is that you MUST inspect your life moment to moment, day by day, with a cast iron honesty. Know as clearly as possible what is the truth about yourself and what are the causes. Know that you can't know everything about what causes your response to events in your life because, as I said, much of what comes at you is karmic. But you can know a good deal about the whys and wherefores of how you respond to the events of your life and the first thing to know is that all of your reactions, your responses, your emotional trauma are always, ALWAYS, your issues. You may think and even say that this or that person did this or that thing that was the cause of your being angry or depressed or whatever but it isn't true. Ever. Not once.
Think of it this way. If there is anyone you know, or you can even imagine, who wouldn't react like you do to a given situation then the reaction's source is within you rather than inherent within the situation. If your reaction is an emotional reaction then it is based upon your personal emotional makeup rather than being an inevitable result of the situation. I have learned that every time I have an emotional reaction to anything or anyone - when someone says or does something that elicits an emotional response - it is not directly because of the situation nor because of the other person. It is because of something within me that is triggered by the event that I want to blame.
Even if you can point to what the other person does and make a case for it being in some way negative that doesn't mean that it is the cause for your reaction. They are responsible for their action. You are responsible for your reaction each and every time you have one and it will almost universally come from your attachment.
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