L is for Lusciously, Luxuriatingly Lazy

RalfDesign via Pixabay

 Hello, my name is Lisa and I have a low tolerance for laziness. Not other people's laziness, mind you. Just my own.

When it comes to laziness, I have a double standard. I'm the first to reassure friends and family that downtime is important -- something I truly believe -- while simultaneously honing a bad habit of filling every minute of my own. 

I'm the queen of lists, projects, and wishful thinking.

The concept of boredom does not compute. I have enough projects on my mental and physical lists to keep me occupied for at least the next decade. This is unfortunate (not to mention more than a tad unrealistic) because I've reached the age where I run out of energy much too early in the day to complete them all. 

Last week, this fill-every-moment, endless to-do list kind of thinking caught up with me, and not for the first time. I was checking things off my lists, but my motivation could not keep pace with my expectations. I was making progress, but I was never satisfied with the progress I was making. 

My husband came home from work one day early in the week and, after asking how I was said, "You look tired."

"I am," I replied.

But that was the first time all day it had occurred to me that I was tired and that an actual lack of energy was at the root of my nonexistent motivation.

How bad does it have to be for a person to recognize that she's tired only when someone else points it out?

So, I sat down and had a little chat with myself about the meaning of "vacation," and "time off," not to mention the longevity of these time periods, or the lack thereof.

Let me reassure you that this is not a pity party -- at least not this week.

It was a call to action. 

R391n4 via Pixabay

I realized that there were a few specific things that needed to change, the simplest of which was re-instating a habit I'd inadvertently broken. Somewhere between my summer class and my summer vacation, I'd stopped prioritizing the things I wanted to do. As a result, I was operating off a lengthy to-do list. This left me both seeing and feeling little progress, which sapped my motivation. 

The other realization had to do with the little chat I had with myself about vacations and productivity. Here, I'd inadvertently fallen into a habit, instead of out of one, carrying my run-run-run, do-do-do mindset into what was supposed to be downtime. 

It was all too much. But, I knew just what I needed.

I needed to recapture a lazy day -- preferably on a regular basis. A day with no specific to-do list. A day where I could move from the first thing I wanted to do to the next for an entire day. A day where reading, dozing, and playing games on my iPad was treated as just as valuable as anything practical I might accomplish.

A lazy summer Sunday. Preferably, a succession of them.

Last Sunday was the first of those days. It was relaxing, rejuvenating, and surprisingly productive, despite its theme of luscious, luxuriating laziness.

It was lovely. And, next Sunday, I plan to do it again. I deserve it.

And I think you do, too.