Ode to human laziness

We are taught from childhood that being lazy is bad. If you don’t clean around the house, you’ll get dirty. If you study carelessly, you won’t enter a university and you won’t make a career. You will shirk from work — you will not earn money. Is it really that bad to be lazy?

A group of researchers from the University of Southern California, led by Marie-Elena Immordino-Young, concluded that laziness is necessary for the full existence of a person and, most likely, it is programmed in us genetically.

In the process of research, scientists were able to discover a close relationship between relaxation and the formation of self-consciousness, as well as various moral values. In addition, it turned out that people who periodically allow themselves to relax demonstrate the best ability to learn and memorize new material.

What, for example, is the rhythm of life of modern children and adolescents? Often, their day is clearly planned: classes, clubs, preparing lessons … And they spend their leisure time at computers. Adults usually consider it right to load the younger generation so that they do not have time for pranks and «all sorts of nonsense.» That is, our children have practically no time to think «about life.» If the child does not seem to be busy with anything, the remark will immediately follow: “You are lazy! Why don’t you clean the room (do your homework, don’t help your mother, etc.)?”

Schoolchildren used to at least read books that encouraged reflection, but today this is a rarity. Most teenagers spend their free time on the Internet, jumping from one to another, playing games and communicating with their peers using electronic communicators.

However, a person needs time for reflection and reflection in order to comprehend the events taking place in his life and in the world around him, plan his future and fully develop, Immordino-Young and her colleagues believe.

In the process of idle “doing nothing”, constructive thoughts can really come to mind. For example, how to make life easier for ourselves, since we are so “breaking” to overstrain … It’s not for nothing that they say that almost all inventions in the world were made thanks to someone’s laziness: for example, shopping carts appeared because it was inconvenient to carry a heavy bag around the store or a basket, and a food processor — because the housewives were too lazy to grind food with their own hands …

We are accustomed to consider «lying on your side» as a sign of degradation. But after all, even lying idle on the couch, a person is not able to completely abandon his thoughts! We «think about life». And it is possible that in the process of “lying down” we will come up with the idea of ​​solving some problems or creating …

Most likely, the state of laziness is programmed in us, otherwise we would all run like clockwork. From time to time, the brain needs a reboot, which allows you to establish harmony with the world and in yourself. Sleep is not quite suitable for this, since when we sleep, conscious thought processes are absent. But pauses during the day — this is it.

By the way, if someone spends too little time studying or working, this does not mean that he is a quitter, because the main thing is the result. One student will learn a paragraph in half an hour, and the other in two. One employee needs a whole working day to complete a task, while another needs three or four hours …

So it’s worth sometimes being “Oblomov” and being lazy. But, of course, you should not take things to the extreme and indulge in thoughts on the couch if you haven’t washed the dishes, haven’t done some primary things … And yet you need to plan your time so that at least “half an hour” remains for “passive rest». Better give up your nightly web surfing and sit quietly in your chair …

Sometimes it is idleness that helps to find a way out of a difficult situation. If some task is not going well for you, you feel that you have reached a dead end — calmly sit in a chair or lie down on a sofa, close your eyes, relax and surrender to the smooth flow of thoughts … You can even take a nap for an hour or two — and suddenly the solution is automatic, as if without any effort on your part, will arise in your head! In offices, during such brainstorming sessions, smoking breaks and coffee drinking are used as a tonic.

You should not scold yourself for not completing this or that, especially if time still suffers. Do it later! And now, if you want to be lazy, be lazy! Let the brains work «idle»!

If you find that someone from your family is not busy with business, you do not need to immediately come up with instructions for him or check what he should be doing at the moment. Remember that we need laziness. It was she who at one time made a person get down from a tree and stand on his hind limbs, invent household items, weapons, a wheel and much more … And if in the distant future robots will save us from unnecessary labor, we will be left with intellectual creativity that will help make the world a better place …