The Thin-Fat Line Between Self-Care and Laziness
Why you need to stop practicing self-care and recovery with guilt
In the modern day spiral of productivity and getting more work done, a lot of us seem to forget the fact that we are human and not robots programmed to work 20 hours a day. And when we eventually fall into a state of a productivity dip (which is 100% normal), we begin to scold our bodies for not being strong enough to handle the excess work. Or we just label ourselves as outright lazy.
I decided to write this article to talk about my view on the fat line between laziness and self-care and recovery to help you become less judgmental when you begin to slow down and actually need a break. Below, I’ve highlighted a few ways to be sure that you actually need a break to recover and it’s not just the feeling of laziness.
1. It’s not all in your head.
There are times when we just feel like we are not in the right frame of mind to work. Truth is, we may just not feel motivated. And you should know by now that you don’t need motivation to get to work. It’s a different situation if you’re having a headache or currently going through something mentally draining like the loss of a loved one.
When you are just being lazy, there’s usually nothing physically or mentally wrong with you. You just keep thinking of reasons why you shouldn’t work. Before you actually decide not to work, ask yourself if there is a concrete reason to do so.
2. You actually want to work but can’t.
Being genuinely tired means that you lack the energy (either physical or mental) to get to work at that moment. And when you are tired from working so hard, you deserve your rest. So most times, we would actually have the zeal to get to work, but there is actually something serious that’s stopping us from doing it.
If you’re being lazy, however, you would actually be able to work. You’d just prefer not to.
3. You actually see a reason to pause.
Take a closer look at your work so far. It’s highly likely that what you have done so far deserves a break. And yes, we all have our opinions about how long to work before taking a break. But some of us work for hours on end, day after day without thinking of rest or recovery. This will eventually lead to a break down. And most of us make the mistake of thinking that it is at this exact point that we should take a break.
It’s not.
When you work so long and hard that it’s your body that gives you serious signs to stop, then you are not properly practicing self-care. Self-care should be incorporated into your daily routine by cultivating healthy lifestyle habits that actually help you work better, taking care of mental health, taking frequent breaks as needed, etc.
4. Laziness doesn’t make you feel better, but self-care does
No matter how guilty we may feel about a period of recovery from work, in the end we are always happy we went through it because it will eventually make us get more productive when we get back to work. Laziness on the other hand usually makes us feel guilty, and in some cases, we may even want to further procrastinate getting back to work.
5. Laziness is taking a break before you even start anything
So you just woke up and had your bath. Then you had breakfast, and suddenly you feel like taking a nap. And you took a nap yesterday. And even reflecting your past days, you can’t remember when last you got any meaningful work done.
Well, of course you’re lazy.
Unless there is some physical or mental barrier keeping you from getting to work all these days. And even in such case, it should be that it’s something you have no control over and you can’t really fix. But you really don’t really need every situation to be just right before you start working.
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The next time you find yourself just lying around for a while without being able to get any real work done, ask yourself: Am I practicing self-care and recovery, or am I being lazy? Evaluate yourself thoroughly before you give an answer. And if it’s the first, I recommend you take all the time you absolutely need. You’d get better work done if your mind and body is in the best state to do so.
However, as for taking care of laziness, I believe the cure is simple.
Just get up and get to work.
There are so many resources out there that teach you how to be productive and work more in less time, and how to achieve your goals all that. But nobody is going to drag you up from your lazy nap unless you are willing to get up. No self-help guru will show you how to do this, you have to do it for yourself.
Thanks for reading!
