It seems fitting to write about laziness (in a philosophical sense) when I’ve been feeling a bit of remorse about my own perceived laziness (in a “getting blog posts written” sense).  I’ve been back from DC for 10 days, so I’ve had plenty of time to write about something, right?

Or maybe not.

A couple of months ago I read and saved this Pema Chodron article from Lion’s Roar. When I started judging myself as lazy for never quite getting to the chair to write, I was grateful that I still had it in my saved items; as it turns out, the root of my perceived laziness doesn’t align perfectly with any of the types of laziness that she identifies. Sure, there’s been lots of rushing around and running amok, but that’s been less in pursuit of pleasure and more trying to meet the demands of the various facets of my life.

This afternoon I have a long list of things that I probably can and should be working on; I have two sets of manuscript revisions floating around (revisions are better than rejections, right?!?), as well as a new manuscript I just got moving on earlier in the month that I want to finish by the end of the year. I have patient notes to finish signing.  I have email to process/ answer.  My workspace on my kitchen counter looks like a tornado has come through here.

I’ve made a choice until the last 15 minutes or so based upon an idea that sitting down and focusing on writing something meaningful simply wasn’t going to happen. I was too tired…out of energy…had one more box to get checked off. A couple of evenings it was simply that I was ready to write, then the pager went off (with the obvious consequences associated with that!). I’ll call it shared accountability between myself and the universe because sloth definitely hasn’t been at play here.

The truth is that laziness is complex. There are times that it’s true sloth, nothing more, nothing less.  There are also times when it’s a planned lull, providing an opportunity to rest, recover, and integrate (the integration piece being something I’m increasingly passionate about, particularly after major accomplishments).

Fortunately, I’ve rested enough. I was also reminded that like laziness in meditation- yes, it’s a “thing”- that laziness in other dimensions of our lives can be managed through 4 antidotes. So I sat and I trusted and I remembered why I started this blog in the first place.

And I’ll be back in a few days with the November Reading Round-up.  Stay tuned.