Fight the Laziness!

Try to be your best in all you do.

There was a time when the choice to be lazy was simply not possible. From hunting and gathering to provide shelter and food through to the agriculture and the need to make sure every moment was used in the pursuit of activities that kept us alive. It’s true that once we mastered farming, there was more free time to pursue other ventures. This resulted in us living the way we do today in large communities with the ability to source what we need through trade.

However, the rapid change to this lifestyle through technology and automation has resulted in a world that moves at a pace many of us can barely keep up with. You only need to watch a movie from before the 70’s to see how they differ from the fats paced action plots of today’s cinema. We now seek out a rapid world by inventing and using technology to access everything we need in the fastest time available. But at what cost?

We still educate children through a school system that has been in place for over a century and teach them the fundamentals of math, science, writing and physical exercise, to name a few. But we don’t hold these as virtuous in society anymore where a math problem can be solved instantly on a iPhone and writing is being reduced small grammatically incorrect bites of text. Ten years of learning in a school system to end up being lazy. Now, I do realize these are social and systemic issues that we are probably never going to change. School, in its basic form, keeps kids occupied and off the streets. It will be around for a long time to come. As will the current evolution of technology and the rapidity of change that we are now used to.

We can make changes at an individual level though. Strive to be a little better everyday at something. This, I argue, should be our use and understanding of language. If you read a Christopher Hitchens book, an essay or just listen to him talk on video and find yourself checking a dictionary for the words he is using, then good. Don’t be lazy an let the language pass you. Look to understand how it can be used and the passion it can evoke by persuading an argument. We all write something every day but do we read with the same enthusiasm.

Look to educate those around you and the groups you either work or socialize with. I challenge you to start dropping in some words that make your friends and acquaintances stop and check what you are saying. Be a little capricious in what you write and even say. It’s not about sounding aloof or condescending through language but using a perfectly good tool to its full extent. Language is fun and should be seen as such.

Small changes are all that is requires. Fight the laziness that technology brings. We do have time in our day to use well thought out sentences, emails, texts and other speech. We do not all need to be writers to achieve this but it is a great way to practice. See it as a gymnasium for your mind.