Overcoming Laziness… If You Can Muster Enough Energy. – Priest Alexei Taakh

In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, when time flies at the speed of light and life looks like an obstacle course, you sometimes are dying to simply drop everything and listen to what your heart tells you. To close your eyes, to feel the silence that envelops us from all sides, and to contemplate things that really matter. All of us sometimes feel the urge to throw off the weight of worries and just enjoy the here and now.

It is a rather typical situation: When you are working non-stop, without any rest, be it a physical labor or intellectual work, sooner or later you end up with occupational burnout, or worse yet, a mental breakdown. The last one is equally dangerous both for your physical and mental health. Sad, but true! I am sure many of us have heard about someone who fully dedicated himself to work, with sleep deprivation and work overload, and then found himself in hospital before long. Having rest is a must-have.

That’s where another peril lurks. Laziness (or sloth) is one of seven mortal sins. It is a state when man has no desire and motivation to perform his work. If rest is necessary to restore strength to continue working, then in the state of laziness man craves rest constantly. Look how the Proverbs of Solomon described it so accurately: laziness brings on deep sleep; and idle person will suffer hunger (Proverbs 19:15). Because who doesn’t labor will not bear the fruit of his work. So, this sin can lead to negative consequences not only to this person, but also to society. Laziness becomes our enemy, as it doesn’t allow us to move forward, to grow and become better. It is akin to a spider that weaves its web around us and never allows us to break its fetters.

Every sin is manifested in two different ways: it can happen only once, or you may fall into sin periodically, but there is also the state of passion when sin gets a lasting, firm grip on you. If, in the former case, we simply have to collect ourselves and, with prayer, continue working, then in the latter case our battle with sin, just as passion itself, becomes a battle for many years—possibly a life-long struggle.

Laziness becomes our enemy, as it doesn’t allow us to move forward, to grow and become better versions of ourselves

Laziness may occur for various reasons. One of them is simply fatigue. When you are under a physical and emotional stress, you may not be able to find enough strength and motivation to complete the necessary tasks, and rest is all you need. But it is important that rest doesn’t last longer than needed or it will turn to idleness—one manifestation of laziness.

Also, laziness may also have to do with dissatisfaction with the results of your work, when it looks as if you continue working and spend all of your time and effort, but the result is nil. At such moments, you simply don’t want to continue working at all. Probably, the most typical example, for me personally is housework. This is when you’ve worked all day to make your house clean and tidy, but the next morning, what you see around is a thick layer of cat fur everywhere and a pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. However, our experience tells us that if we decide not to keep our house clean, things will become ever so much worse.

And of course our labor always reaps results, it’s just that it may not be as obvious right away. Then again, you won’t immediately see the results of protracted laziness either. If you shall slack in thy deeds, what shall you eat? Being lazy will make you poor (cf. Sirach 4:33, from the Russian).

Our fear of failure or lack of confidence in our abilities may also lead to laziness. A person might try to avoid doing what’s necessary so that he won’t face possible disappointment or criticism. We must keep in mind that everyone can make occasional mistakes, and we can all get bad results. Musicians whose music is known worldwide definitely have other pieces that are often called “passable.” If their creators stopped trying, the world would have never even heard their names. Or the actors who typically have to keep replaying the same episode over and over again in order to obtain the perfect shot—it’s that we simply never see the dozens of outtakes that end up in the trash bin. What we see in the end is the result of someone’s hard work for a long time. Yet still, the internet is bursting at seams with criticism about many pieces in cinema, music, art etc. However, if all of them quit working and laboring out of fear of criticism, there would be no results at all, none.

If a person succumbs to laziness in spiritual life and stops praying or attending church, his own life will change for the worse. It may look as first as if—oh, it’s not a big deal, I missed it once, but I had a good reason. Sure, that’s true; nothing will happen if it is done only once. But later you will do it a second time, and then for the third time. At a certain point, you can’t come up with new excuses, but the sin of laziness already did its work. On the one hand, such a person feels remorse, and on the other, he is ashamed of entering the church, because he is afraid the parishioners will turn on him in condemnation. Without church and prayer, we get further and further from God and become even more irritable and gloomy. Over time, we almost imperceptibly allow our souls to be filled with passions and sins.

There’s a rather old reflection: Why is it that we struggle so hard to stand through a two-hour service, but it’s so easy and fun for us to watch a two-hour movie? The answer is simple. When we watch movies or a TV series, read an interesting book, play computer games, and so on, we have fun. But when we pray, we labor spiritually. Sure, the feeling of lightness and joy after prayer is also enjoyable, but it is the result of labor. As for entertainment, it comes effortlessly, since pleasures are available immediately, without any hard work. Herein lies one of the main traps of laziness. By having pleasures within easy reach, we don’t really want to work, because all we want is to continue having pleasurable experiences over and over again. Sometimes it so happens that a person is horrified at how much time has been wasted, to no avail. Wasted both in physical and spiritual life. Laziness means striving for idleness. Laziness defiles a man, but the desire to do the will of God makes him pure (cf: Proverbs 21:25).

It is so important to force ourselves to pray, visit the church and On Preparation for Holy Communion. “We must raise the standard”As the Lord said in the Gosples, He that is able to receive it, let him receive it (Mt. 19:12): one person may be capable of living an intense inner life, regularly go to church, and continually search his own conscience—as St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) says, so that their minds would always swim in the Gospels, in the teachings of Christ. Another person might be so inwardly disposed that it is an ascetic labor for him to receive Communion only twice a year.

“>prepare for Communion. The Lord Himself said about this: The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force (Matthew 11:12). It is impossible to achieve results in the spiritual life without effort.

However, it is the same principle that applies to our worldly life. Not just personal, but also social. If people didn’t force themselves to work, we would have never built buildings, explored new territories, or made scientific discoveries. Without the effort of a great number of people in the past we would have never had scientific knowledge, power plants, transportation and many technologies, including the ones that help us today to learn something new or, as an aside, to read this very article.

There are several ways to overcome laziness, both psychological and spiritual. One such way is setting goals and planning activities. When a person has a clear understanding of what he wants to accomplish, it can help to overcome laziness and to get things going. It is also important to find motivation to continue working. These could be personal interests, values or extrinsic stimuli. At the same time, you need to find a healthy balance between work and downtime; constant overwork will simply lead to burnout and apathy. But having rest shouldn’t be too protracted either, and we have spoken about that earlier.

Having adequate nutrition and a healthy amount of sleep is no small matter

Having adequate nutrition and a healthy amount of sleep is no small matter—that’s something we often leave neglected in our student days and then continue being ignorant about as adults. If a human body doesn’t receive the proper amount of vitamins and other substances with food, fatigue will set in much faster; there will be nowhere to draw energy from. And without regular and adequate sleep, our brain won’t function properly either. I believe we have all experienced the consequences of regular sleep deprivation in our lives, especially when we were students. Constant drowsiness and fatigue from the early morning can’t allow a person to work properly, especially if it is intellectual labor. These are obvious medical facts.

In spiritual life, overcoming laziness is possible through faith, labor and obedience to God. The first step, like everything else, is about the recognition of a problem that your desire to have rest turns into a desire to remain idle. A good starting point for your battle would be prayer and repentance in order to cleanse your soul. Man can’t overcome sins and passions on his own, without turning to God.

The next step is working hard and diligently as a counterbalance to laziness. This can be both physical labor and spiritual work to improve yourself. As we said above, we should urge ourselves to work and pray. And certainly in addition to the observance of God’s will—going to church, praying and almsgiving; in other words, helping our neighbors in every possible way. Because almsgiving is not only about giving money to beggars, but also giving our loved ones our time, energy and money, to the extent possible. For example, we can help an elderly person carry shopping bags and cross the road, or feed the hungry, even if it is simply your colleague at work; support a friend in a difficult situation, hear him out. Doing good, in general. All people of the world of any religion and worldview know that good deeds always come back to us.

Naturally, it is advisable to consult with your priest and loved ones. Such communication will help us not to become confused, as an outside perspective is always important. The devil never sleeps, and those who hope to defeat sin on their own often fall into satan’s traps, unable to see how their path is slowly drifting away. Your father confessor and loved ones will always guide and help by prayer, word and deed. We also shouldn’t forget about reading spiritual literature. The edifying lessons of the Bible and the experience of the Holy Fathers always help us in many moments of our material and spiritual life.

Last but not least, just as during any kind of work performed for an extended period of time, our struggle with any passion requires patience and perseverance. Our fight with laziness won’t be easy. We can experience ups and downs, but there is no way can we give up and back down. As the Lord said, But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved (Matthew 24:13).