Laziness can serve us when we need to relax after tenuous effort, but it can work against us if it becomes a habit. When sporatic laziness becomes lethargy, it is often a sign that meaning and direction have been lost, although there are people who brag about being "couch potatoes" as if it were a major achievement. In those people, you can sense their hopelessness when they speak about their lives, because they know that the vitality they experienced as a child has disappeared. Within them, you can hear a faint cry for change.

Forrest Gump (1994) is a film which reveals how someone can live without lethargy. As the lead character, Tom Hanks portrays Forrest as always dreaming, doing good deeds, being decisive, and staying in action. Just because he feels like it, he begins running back and forth across the country. When he decides to stop, he stops. When he decides to start a company, he does it without hesitation. His dreaming and energetic action make him worth millions, but that is little compared to the meaning his life achieves because of his decisiveness and commitment to action. If you would like to overcome lethargy to become more like Forrest, "Lazy as Dust" will provide some inspiration to change.

Your movie

In a moment, you will use your imagination to get a clearer picture of your inner movie about lethargy. The point of understanding this pattern of thoughts, feelings, and effects is to deepen your awareness of its dynamics and impact, so you can make conscious choices and create a new movie to live within.

Recall a time when you felt as lazy as dust. Close your eyes and replay the experience in your imagination. Then, write a brief description of the drama below, carefully including the thoughts that supported the drama, the feelings that arose from those thoughts, and how those feelings affected what you said and did. (Enter your response in the following box or in your word processor window.)

What effects did this drama have on you and others?

Consequences

Briefly describe what you get from your lethargy. What are the payoffs?

Briefly describe the price you pay for it. What parts of yourself and your life do you sacrifice when you become too lazy?

Is what you are getting in payoffs worth the sacrifices you have to make?

New choices

Having become more aware of this movie, including what you get from it and what you sacrifice, what new choices in thinking and being are being revealed to you? Note them.

Create a new movie

Relying on those choices and your creativity, sketch out ideas for a different movie which incorporates new ways of thinking and being. As you create your new movie, be aware that you are of two minds because you have a dual nature. Your duality gives you the capacity to shift from one thought to its opposite in a search for balance. For example, there is a side of you that has the capacity to overcome laziness with commitment and action. How will cultivating that capacity alter how you live?

As you look back on your work, identify the first step you will take to make the changes you designed.

With your eyes closed, imagine living in your new movie.

People who are excessively lazy may have decided at an early age that they had insufficient inner power to make their lives count, so lethargy grew as a natural response to their decision. By choosing to be lazy, they created dull lives, which served to make them more idle. Being lazy became so much of a habit, they lost awareness of their capacity for effort and commitment. As a consequence, their lives fell out of balance. The capacity for balance arises when we acknowledge our potential to be lazy or active. Free to go one way or the other, we can choose to be lazy when a good rest is needed or decide to take action to achieve a goal. To create balance, some frantically busy people need to be lazier, while the lethargic need to put out more effort.