Lazy?

“You might be the laziest person I know.”

This was a comment from my wife yesterday in regards to my reasons for not wanting to use the door in the garage. The deal was the car garage door was open and I didn’t want to open the human access door. I envisioned opening the door with a two-year-old child in my arms, locking it and then closing it behind me. I hit the car garage door button and took my daughters life in my hands running under the closing door. I saved at least fifteen seconds and a number of wasted motions. As far as I’m concerned my wife paid me a complement.

There is a story I’m reminded of by the Brothers Grimm. Basically the three sons had to say how lazy they were and the winner got to be king. Now while I have no belief that my lazy tendencies will lead me to govern a nation, I do think they tend to be a service to me. A wise person once stated that necessity is the mother of invention. I believe this statement to be true, but I don’t think it is only necessity that spurs invention. You could say that laziness produced some pretty good stuff too. I would put it more eloquently but we lazy folks don't really care quite as much as others.

I can recall plenty of times in my life where I have put off work to further my pursuit of something more idle. When I was younger one of my duties was to water the garden. My father showed me how, you stand here and sweep the water back and forth for fifteen minutes, then you move here and start all over again. This process was repeated over a quarter acre garden. All in all the process took about forty-five minutes.

If it hadn’t have been for laziness I would have been lost. I put off watering the garden for an hour while I constructed an irrigation plan for the melon patch. It was an elaborate series of ditches starting from a single spot on the top of the mound. I ended up only saving about fifteen minutes but I learned a valuable lesson. If you want a few minutes of time to yourself your going to have to work for it. Make no mistake; working hard on something you do like to put off something you don’t like is being lazy.

I have found that I will spend a countless amount of time trying to find a better way to do a thing if it keeps me from actually doing the thing. Yard work tends to be near the top of that list every time. There is something about racking mowing or weeding that brings out the “Are you sure we should be sweating during this?” attitude in me.

The lazy person will always be looking for a better way, even if they have to take a lot of rest and naps along the way. I suppose we didn’t need the escalator, microwave or electric mixer but I’m glad they’re here. And I imagine we have a lot of lazy people to thank for them.