Overcoming Laziness
Busy people are often the most lazy. We have all heard stories of a businessman who works
hard to earn money. He works hard to be a good provider for his wife and children. He
spends long hours at the office and brings work home on weekends. One day he comes home
to an empty house. His wife has left with the kids. He knew he and his wife had problems,
but rather than work to make the relationship strong, he stayed busy at work. Dismayed, his
performance at work slips and he loses his job.
Today, I often meet people who are too busy to take care of their wealth. And there are
people too busy to take care of their health. The cause is the same. They’re busy, and they
stay busy as a way of avoiding something they do not want to face. Nobody has to tell them.
Deep down they know. In fact, if you remind them, they often respond with anger or
irritation.
If they aren’t busy at work or with the kids, they’re often busy watching TV, fishing, playing
golf, or shopping. Yet deep down they know they are avoiding something important. That’s
the most common form of laziness: laziness by staying busy.
So what is the cure for laziness? The answer is—a little greed. For many of us, we were
raised thinking of greed or desire as bad. “Greedy people are bad people,” my mom used to
say. Yet we all have inside of us this yearning to have nice, new, or exciting things. So to
keep that emotion of desire under control, often parents find ways of suppressing that desire
with guilt. “You only think about yourself. Don’t you know you have brothers and sisters?”
was one of my mom’s favorites. “You want me to buy you what?” was a favorite of my dad.
“Do you think we’re made of money? Do you think money grows on trees? We’re not rich
people, you know.”
It wasn’t so much the words, but the angry guilt trip that went with the words that got to me.
Or the reverse guilt trip was the “I’m sacrificing my life to buy this for you. I’m buying this
for you because I never had this advantage when I was a kid.” I have a neighbor who is
stone-broke but can’t park his car in his garage. The garage is filled with toys for his kids.
Those spoiled brats get everything they ask for. “I don’t want them to know the feeling of
want” are his everyday words. He has nothing set aside for their college or his retirement,
but his kids have every toy ever made. He recently got a new credit card in the mail and took
his kids to visit Las Vegas. “I’m doing it for the kids,” he said with great sacrifice.
Rich dad forbade the words, “I can’t afford it.” In my real home, that’s all I heard. Instead,
rich dad required his children to say, “How can I afford it?” He believed that the words “I
can’t afford it” shut down your brain. It didn’t have to think anymore. “How can I afford it?”
opened up the brain and forced it to think and search for answers.
But most importantly, he felt the words, “I can’t afford it,” were a lie. And the human spirit
knows it. “The human spirit is very, very powerful,” he would say. “It knows it can do
anything.” By having a lazy mind that says, “I can’t afford it,” a war breaks out inside you.
Your spirit is angry, and your lazy mind must defend its lie. The spirit is screaming, “Come
on. Let’s go to the gym and work out.” And the lazy mind says, “But I’m tired. I worked
really hard today.” Or the human spirit says, “I’m sick and tired of being poor. Let’s get out
there and get rich.” To which the lazy mind says, “Rich people are greedy. Besides it’s too
much bother. It’s not safe. I might lose money. I’m working hard enough as it is. I’ve got too
much to do at work anyway. Look at what I have to do tonight. My boss wants it finished by
morning.”
“I can’t afford it” also causes sadness, a helplessness that leads to despondency and often
depression. “How can I afford it?” opens up possibilities, excitement, and dreams. So rich
dad was not so concerned about what we wanted to buy as long as we understood that “How
can I afford it?” creates a stronger mind and a dynamic spirit.
Thus he rarely gave Mike or me anything. He would instead ask, “How can you afford it?”
and that included college, which we paid for ourselves. It was not the goal, but the process
of attaining the goal that he wanted us to learn.
The problem I see today is that there are millions of people who feel guilty about their
desire or their “greed.” It’s old conditioning from their childhood. While they desire to have
the finer things that life offers, most have been conditioned subconsciously to say, “I can’t
have that,” or “I’ll never be able to afford that.”
When I decided to exit the Rat Race, it was simply a question of “How can I afford to never
work again?” And my mind began to kick out answers and solutions. The hardest part was
fighting my real parents’ dogma: “We can’t afford that.” “Stop thinking only about yourself.”
“Why don’t you think about others?” and other similar sentiments designed to instill guilt to
suppress my “greed.”
So how do you beat laziness? Once again, the answer is a little greed. It’s that radio station
WII-FM, which stands for “What’s In It For Me?” A person needs to sit down and ask,
“What would my life be like if I never had to work again?” “What would I do if I had all the
money I needed?” Without that little greed, the desire to have something better, progress is
not made. Our world progresses because we all desire a better life. New inventions are
made because we desire something better. We go to school and study hard because we want
something better. So whenever you find yourself avoiding something you know you should
be doing, then the only thing to ask yourself is, “What’s in it for me?” Be a little greedy. It’s
the best cure for laziness.
Too much greed, however, as anything in excess can be, is not good. But just remember what
Michael Douglas said in the movie
Wall Street:
“Greed is good.” Rich dad said it
differently: “Guilt is worse than greed, for guilt robs the body of its soul.” I think Eleanor
Roosevelt said it best: “Do what you feel in your heart to be right—for you’ll be criticized
anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”
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