Brainwashing The Laziness Out

 Every individual has their own passions or pursuits that they dream to be successful in, and usually they also hope that they can benefit from their success too. Yet, there is a lifestyle that every single human being on this planet shares as their ideal way of living. It’s actually one of the most easy crafts in the world to be successful in, but it’s also one of the hardest to benefit from. In actuality, some of the only people who have been known to benefit from this are the children of the rich, lobbyists, and Bruno Mars. I’m talking about laziness. Everybody dreams of a world with no responsibilities; we want to have everything and do nothing. 

Unfortunately, we weren’t all born with the last name Kardashian. People need to be self-aware and understand that our environments aren’t going to work with us, we need to work with our environments. Twenty-first-century laziness is causing people to not function properly in society, so essentially we must inspire motivation through propaganda.

Mental Effects/Behavior 

  Initially, the main reason why people love to be lazy is because it’s uncomplicated and straight-forwardly satisfying. Going back several billion years, I could tell you that our savage ancestors were not thinking about pursuing MBA’s, ironing their suits, or meeting up with their 10 o'clock coffee. They persevered on short-term thinking in the wild, and took every advantage they possibly could to make living easier. This is because uncertain long-term thinking could potentially cost them their life to a lack of resources of even to an enemy. Press the fast forward button to some millenniums later, and the same species no longer has raw survival on their schedule. Yet, we still have the same DNA that makes it practically instinct to look for shortcuts. According to award-winning psychiatrist and philosopher Neel Burton, people are innate to side with the ensured logic in short-term decisions, and tend to be skeptical of uncertain long-term goals that don’t immediately satisfy. This explains why there are people who are reluctant to work on their life passion. They wouldn’t have to worry about the additional stress of undergoing long-term life strategies. Which is why people love to slack off, considering being lazy just happens to come with zero stress.  

 Today, people have endless responsibilities that range from our family that relies on us, all the way to our job that pays the bills. This tends to be stressful, so it’s not unusual for people to seek pleasure elsewhere. Being physically inactive is extremely relaxing for most people, and it’s easy to be addicted to. People turn breaks into a constant habit. While I acknowledge the importance of pressing the pause button at work to sustain sanity, people have to eventually have to press resume, or else they’ll be stuck paused in time for a while. When time put into relaxing exceeds time spent with hard-work, people become lazy. It’s also as effortless as ever to be mentally inactive with today’s technology doing all the thinking for us. I mean, why use your brain when there’s Google that can answer every possible question known to man? 

 People are extremely unaware of how our modern conveniences encourage us to not think for ourselves. What’s worse is instead of questioning strange information found on the internet, people tend to believe everything they see. It seems that society these days are becoming extremely dependent on the knowledge of cell phones and computers, and have forgot they have natures greatest miracle, which is right above their eyes and inside their skulls. 

Physical Effects/Visible Physique 

  Moreover, laziness causes unhealthy lifestyles that cause people to not operate properly in society. An article by The Independent called “The Age of Inactivity,” can tell you that right now, physical inactivity is the 4 world killer. Now, it’s a known fact that exercise is important to regulate all types of organ systems and keeps us from looking like walking blobs of flesh, so why is it being so neglected? This is the power of laziness on a global scale, which shows extreme negative impacts. People from all over the world seem to value being slumped over on a couch with a chest full of potato chip crumbs than to face deadly chronic illnesses like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, depression, dementia, cancer, and more. Also, it’s natural for our society today to spend their hours of immobility on their cellphone or computer. While technology addictions may inspire physical inactivity, it’s also been proven that they can lead to mental instability. 

  We are isolating ourselves from the real world of fresh air and face-to-face conversation to living in a virtual world of Instagram likes and Snapchat story views. In fact, studies show that people with technology addictions usually develop narcissistic personalities due to desire of constant needs of posting “selfies” and receiving attention. These social media platforms practically exist to brainwash the youth into needing constant love. The same study actually shows that this leaves people being extremely emotional, lonely, and bitter. The truth is there are people we pass by everyday who feel hopeless and have low self esteem. These are the folks who don’t see a purpose in showing up to their work office every weekday at 7 am. These people are sabotaging themselves with laziness! Instead of focusing on bettering their lives, their hiding in their houses under a blanket, sitting on a mountain of cheese doodles, staring at a computer screen for hours with bloodshot eyes, probably complaining on Twitter about how much their life sucks. If something isn’t done right now, the entirety of the human population might as well resemble that of the movie Wall-e; moving around in chairs instead of our legs, having a screen in our face 24/7, and considering anything under 900 pounds underweight.
 

THE SOLUTION IS EDUCATION

 Finally, we can now come to deduction that the only way to fix this chaos is by correctly educating people about reality. In all honesty, lazy people are just people who are unable to understand how life works, and because of this they don’t bother. Once there was an ancient philosopher by the name of Epicurus who said and I quote, “not everything pleasurable should be pursued and everything painful should not be avoided.” What he illustrated was what’s called a hedonistic scale, which is what would be applied to life decisions to determine in what will result in the greatest pleasure over time. We need to be educating people on how it’s long-term strategizing that leads to the best quality of life. We need to be thinking for ourselves, and we need to be thinking analytically. People should be able to solve their own problems, but instead they avoid them! 

 The only thing that can combat laziness is the power of education. It is simply the engine of our self-motivation that needs tuning. We need a purpose if we’re going to put the effort into something, and a purpose is something a lot of people are missing. First, we must start right at the roots of the problem and change our education system of K-12. Schools shape, cultivate, and create the future. Instead of teaching students “what” to think, we must teach them “how” to think. This encourages children to think for themselves, and paves the way for the future of our world to be populated by intellectuals and problem-solvers who contribute to society, rather than hiding from it. An education experience that actually excites and intrigues children, because it motivates them to find and be the best they can be at their craft! 

  Also, since there’s no getting rid of technology at this point, why don’t we use social media’s brainwashing to good use? Propaganda advertising importance of diligence, hard work, and activity to change perception in our generation's outlook on their life. It’s not hard to demonstrate to people how a habit of laziness leads to lower quality of life; we need to put more educational ads on the television, on social media, and the internet. Long ago, people smoked cigarettes everywhere and everyday. The power of education via advertisement was able to inform people about the harms of smoking, and now cigarette smoking has decreased dramatically! We must begin advertising motivation on our media outlets now if we’re ever to create a functioning society