Living requires you to take personal responsibility if you want to be effective, productive, and successful. You must pay attention to everything you do regularly. You matter! Your living also matters. You need to start taking everything about your life seriously. If you don’t, things will degenerate right before your eyes without your permission.
It is true that when you live a building unattended, it is just a matter of time before it begins to fall apart no matter how strong or sound the structure has been. Likewise, a life, business, marriage, relationship, or career left to itself will waste away unnecessarily. You are not meant to fall apart. You cannot afford to leave your life to chance.
Laziness by its definition is an unwillingness to work or exert energy in anything worthwhile. It is a lack of interest. It is a dishonoring act even to your creator. God warned us not to be lazy. Even mother nature does not and cannot tolerate laziness.
The Bible warned us:
Because of laziness the building decays, And through idleness of hands the house leaks.
Ecc 10: 18
In order words, laziness will cause your life to gradually degenerate (start to leak) and eventually fall apart right if nothing is done. If you allow laziness to fester in your life, it will take root, build stronghold, and eventually become a habit that will be difficult to break. You cannot leave your life to chance otherwise you will end up in chain or being controlled by others.
Laziness is a killer of destiny. It paralyzes people from taking actions that can liberate them from poverty and wastefulness. When people are lazy, they tend not to do what they ought to do to the best of their ability per time. Everything worthwhile in life requires some level of seriousness, personal input, and responsibility. If it matters to you, you must give it your all.
Living requires you to take personal responsibility if you want to be effective, productive, and successful.
You have the potential to make your life count. It is of uttermost importance to take control of your life. You are too precious to waste away or allow laziness to rob you of your glorious destiny. You are a blessed person loaded with all of God. Unfortunately, none of that will count if you are lazy. Let’s consider how laziness shows itself…
Laziness causes procrastination: It is been said that procrastination is the thief of time. Procrastination is leaving what is important today undone until another day. When you procrastinate, you knowingly pursue less important things at the expense of the most important and significant things in your life. You are not taking any definite steps towards your destiny. You leave what you must do today until tomorrow and so put unnecessary pressure on tomorrow. Author Napoleon Hill once said: “Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.” When you develop the habit of procrastinating, you will always struggle to catch up. In the process, you get overwhelmed by the enormity of what you have to do that you get paralyzed and end up doing nothing. The result of procrastination is regret.
When you develop the habit of procrastinating, you will always struggle to catch up. In the process, you get overwhelmed by the enormity of what you have to do that you get paralyzed and end up doing nothing.
Nonchalant attitude: Laziness can cause you to take everything for granted and be careless. You are living as if nothing is at stake. Your life is at stake. Everything that matters most to you is at stake. Nothing in your life will work unless you work it. Nothing will happen until you start making them happen. You cannot just afford to be careless with your life and destiny. You have to start doing what you have to do now. Some things are very important and significant in life and they should be treated as such. Everything is not the same and does not carry the same weight. When you develop a nonchalant attitude you major in minor things.
Hesitation: A lazy person always thinks there is a better time in the future to do whatever they can do now. So, they hesitate to do what they must do now until another time. They hesitate to close deals, or make important calls, make their impact known because they always think that have all the time. They hesitate to express love. They hesitate to show that they care. They hesitate to do their shopping. When you hesitate, you will miss opportunities that God brings your way. Hesitation is often precipitated by fear. Opportunity to meet new people, opportunity to do something good for something else. Be aware of the fact that life is time-sensitive.
Slowness: The Bible equates a lazy person to a sloth- an animal who sleeps a lot, sluggish or slow to act. Laziness causes people to be reluctant. There is a time for everything under the sun. There is a time to act and if you don’t act at that particular time, you will end up reacting and for the most part, it will always be too late.
Lack of structure: Many things are destroyed because of lack structure. A structure is like a backbone that gives stability to a plan. Lack of structure will make you waste your time and pursue things that you don’t have any business pursuing. Having a structure protects and helps you create a healthy boundary. A lack of structure will cause a lazy person to wait for someone else to tell them what to do and how to run their life. A lack of structure will cause people not to have a plan and even if they have one, they are reluctant in pursuing it to the best of their ability.
Life is time-sensitive.
Lack of focus: Apart from lack of structure, a lack of focus is another highlight of a lazy person. They don’t know what they should focus on per time because they have procrastinated everything until the deadline. When we don’t have focus, everything will appeal to us and wants our attention. A lack of focus can stop people from effectively managing and protecting their time and energy. Remember time is the sum total of your life.
Tiredness: Haven’t noticed that a lazy person is always tired. Not only physically but mentally as well. They always complain that they are tired. They also always complain that everything is difficult. When people are tired, it will be difficult to process information well because they are not alert, active and agile. They are not at their best. When you are always tired, you are not sensitive to accurately discern everything around you. When you are tired, you will mishear and misjudge information. It has been advised not to make decisions when you are tired because you can end up making the wrong one.
Your life is at stake. Everything that matters most to you is at stake.
Busy but not effective: it is possible to be busy doing nothing. You are just piling activities that may not be meaningful and essential into your day just to fill your calendar. You are like someone who is running on a treadmill going nowhere. When you are busy but not effective, you end up not doing anything significant with your life. Most often than none, people who are busy but not effective tend to act in a way that will make others think well of them. To some people, they feel accomplished when others think that they are busy. They usually enjoy telling others how busy they are. It is just a baloney as someone I know will say. They have forgotten that life will catch up with them because when others are reaping the reward of their work, they will end up not having anything to show for their so-called busyness. Because they have been full of activities but no real progress.
Are you a lazy person? I apologize if I am blunt. Can you identify with any of these behaviors? Which one resonates with you? In the coming week, I will be discussing what you can do to prevent your life from falling apart through laziness. Stay tuned…