Don't Give Up, You Lazy Bastard

It’s the New Year and of course, right around now you here the cliche phrase of “New Year. New Me.”....only to wind up giving up on whatever sort of big goal they set out to achieve just a few short weeks later.

I already dived into how New Year’s Resolutions are bullshit last week and today I want to clarify that it’s not so much bullshit to make a goal for the year in the first place. It’s bullshit to give up on it. You shouldn’t make a goal that you’re going to give up on. Ever. (And doing so is bullshit)

Now I get it. I mean it’s so easy to give up. And believe me, as a lazy man, I’m always looking to take “the easy way out.” Goal-getting is no exception. 

You’re trying to reach a goal and things just aren’t going the way you wanted or expected. It seems like a lot more effort than you’re capable of, one could say “impossible”, so what do you do? Say “fuck it” and leave it on the shelf, never to be picked up again. 

You tried to find a date and keep getting rejected. You tried to play guitar and can barely hold a chord for more than a few seconds. You tried to lose weight and end up in the drive-thru at McDonald’s.






Giving up. Seems like the lazy thing to do. No doubt. It makes sense that throwing in the towel and lying on the couch would be quite lazy.

But, you gotta look beyond the surface. While giving up certainly removes the effort of having to actually do the thing you set out to do, in turn, it creates an even heavier burden, it creates even more effort than the initial goal had to begin with.

See, in giving up on your goal, which is seemingly the lazy thing to do, you are introducing a little devil in your life and that devil is called guilt.

Guilt is basically “feeling bad” for not doing something. It’s self-induced shame, where you condemn your own self. You attack yourself with insulting thoughts and words.

You tell yourself that you suck, that you’re just not good enough, that you aren’t worthy. You become your own biggest critic when you feel guilty about something. You become your worst hater.








 Guilt is a burdensome emotion to deal with and quite frankly more energy depleting than actually just pulling through and completing your goal anyway.

So you decide to quit your goal of losing weight. Now you feel guilty for being a fat fuck. So you decide to quit your goal of finding a partner. Now you feel guilty for being “forever alone”. So you give up your goal to start a business. Now you feel guilty for being a work slave at a desk job.

Guilt is fucking draining man. You beat yourself up, constantly berating yourself about one thing or another that you should’ve done or could’ve done.

There’s a little voice inside your head that won’t shut up and keeps reminding you of how terrible you are for what you did or failed to do. The more you try to silence it, the louder it speaks to the point where it’s SCREAMING.

It’s shouting at you about just how just fucking awful you are for not doing such n’ such or for doing so n’ so completely WRONG.

It’s been said time and time again within the content of my blog and podcast that laziness is all about minimizing effort and maximizing results.

And look, if you choose not to go through with a goal and put yourself through guilt instead, you’re putting yourself through more effort than necessary. A lot more.

The amount of work it takes to tear yourself up for not doing the thing you said you’d do iis extreme.

And what are the results? Feeling ashamed of yourself? Ain’t worth the effort man.

Either do your goal or don’t. But either way, don’t complain about it.

If you want to quit smoking, then either quit or keep lighting up. Don’t be one of these “non-smoker smokers' ' that always bitch and moan about how they can’t quit even though they’re trying to and it’s so addicting and blah blah blah blah blah as they're chainsmoking two packs a day.

Cease it, sister! You’re fighting against yourself for no reason. You’re making the goal (in this case, quitting smoking) even harder than it actually needs to be.








Don’t make a goal just to complain about how you aren’t fulfilling said goal later. Make a goal and stick to it.

That is minimizing effort and maximizing results. That is lazy. It takes a hulluva lot more effort to feel guilty and beat yourself up about it than it does to actually... do it.

I know, I know “do it” doesn’t seem to be very lazy at all. But you literally can’t do nothing.

The fact is, you have to do something. You have to put effort into one thing or another. That much is unavoidable. It’s a matter of choosing how you invest that effort (and ideally, if you’re being lazy, putting in as little effort as possible while getting the biggest results).

 When it comes to goal-achieving, you can either put effort towards your goal or put effort into struggling with the guilt of not doing your goal. I reckon the latter is a lot more work.

I mean I don’t want to deal with a boss yelling at me telling me what I should do, yet alone my own inner thoughts.

Besides, just take a look at our spirit animal.

The sloth is a persistent motherfucker. He doesn’t give up easily, no!  He climbs that tree, slow n’ steady, reaching the top (of his goal) eventually. 

He knows giving up takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of energy to deal with the guilt associated with that. So he don’t do that shit. He keeps climbing, ever forward, ever slowly, knowing he’ll get there...eventually.








Eventually is the way of a true procrastin8r, not giving up.

Embrace your inner sloth and keep climbing to the heights of your goal. Don’t put yourself through the inner turmoil of guilt. Be patient. Let success come later.

You have to be okay with the fact that you’re not gonna reach your goal right away. You’re not gonna accomplish what you set out to do overnight or even over the span of a few short weeks or months for that matter.

 But just because it won’t happen today or any time soon doesn’t mean you can’t make progress tomorrow. Ah, tomorrow, the favorite date of a procrastin8r. Things can and will come in due time. You just gotta keep telling yourself “tomorrow it will happen.” Take it one day at a time, one step at a time. Don’t rush to the finish line that’s miles away.

And realize this. Realize that you’re probably gonna back track a  bit. Bluntly, you’re gonna fuck up.

Humble yourself and be willing to make that fuck up once in a while. After all, mistakes are meh. It’s better to fuck up then to try to hold up your pride. It’s okay to be an idiot.

You can always learn from mistakes. You can’t learn anything from giving up.

Once you give up, that’s it. It’s over. Progress is put to a complete halt.

But the guilt will haunt you for the rest of your life. You’ll be lying on your death bed, hoping, wishing, longing for something different, some kind of change, but by then it’ll be too late.

It’s better late then never, a mindset of a true procrastin8r. It’s better to attain your goals eventually, much LATER, than it is to give up be lying on your death bed wishing you hadn’t.

Take your time, man. Be persistent. Go after what you want, slow n’ steady.

It may seem like a lot of hard work, a lot of effort, to being going after what you want, but just remember it’s a lot more strenuous to carry the burden of guilt or regret for the rest of your life than work towards a goal for a few years.





If you are going to give up on a goal, you have to accept your loss.

Now I wouldn’t go as far as to say “don’t EVER give up.” As a matter of fact, I talked about before how you should be a quitter and know when to quit.

Not all things are worth your time. For example, let’s say you want to find a romantic partner, but the person you’re currently dating is a rather shallow and toxic person or maybe you two just aren’t compatible.

You’d be maximizing effort by trying to keep together a relationship that’s fundamentally broken, while minimizing results of being in an unhappy relationship.

Sometimes you gotta know when to quit. “Ya gotta know when to fold.” (cue Kenny Rogers). There are certain situations that are, well for lack of a better phrase, worth giving up on.

It’s at that point though, you have to cut your losses and move on. Don’t bitch and whine about it. Don’t live in guilt or regret. 

Accept the cons of not pursuing your goal along with the pros. Every decision you make, especially when it comes to giving up, there is gonna be a good side and a bad side to it.

Be purposeful in your decision and don’t look back. Procrastinate with purpose, fam.

Just remember in giving up one thing, you are in turn, choosing to keep another. By giving up your weight loss goal, you are in turn  choosing to eat the foods you like. By giving up the foods you like, you are in turn choosing to pursue your weight loss goal.

You see, there’s always a bit of a balance to the scale.

I suppose the overall message where, what I’m trying to get at is don’t give up on the things you’d regret giving up later. I mean think about, using the weight loss example, would you feel more guilty/regretful over developing chronic health problems or not being able to eat exactly what you want all the time?

I’m not here to tell you which one to choose. That’s for you to decide.

What seems like more effort for you to deal with? Choose the path of least resistance. Choose the lazy path.

Either way, you have to accept the consequences of your decision. You can’t make a decision based solely on the benefits you receive, because, I mean, let’s face it, there’s rarely ever a decision that is benefits versus benefits.

There is usually some sort of drawback (or drawbacks) that come included with each set of benefits. 

You want to aim to make the decision that gets you to think “well, that would suck giving up that other thing, but I wouldn’t totally regret it either.”

Accept your loss. Remove the guilt.

If you want to eat whatever you want, accept the consequences of being fat. If you want to lie around the house all day, accept the consequences of never having a real job.

Another thing too, acceptance is NOT approval. By accepting the consequences you face, you don’t (or very shouldn’t) need other people to feel the same way. Haters gonna hate. You have to accept that too.

Just because you accept who you are and the decisions you make doesn’t mean other people will




 You don’t automatically gain approval just because you accept yourself.

Just because you don’t feel guilty of the life choices you make, doesn’t mean other people won’t attempt to make you feel guilty.

Ya know there’s this whole “fat positive” movement. The premise is that people should find beauty in all shapes and sizes. Okay I can agree with that, to a certain extent.

Bullying or insulting someone because of their weight is both immature and unacceptable.

But they want to eliminate fat shaming. Fat “shaming”? Shaming is actually an effective social tactic to discourage bad behavior...in the same way we shame pedophiles and dog abusers

There are certain behaviors that are shameful because they cause harm (either to yourself or others). Those behaviors should be shamed.

Now again, I’m not justifying any sort of harassing or anything. That is harm within itself. What I am saying though is that they should expect some sort of shame because what they’re doing to their body is fundamentally unhealthy.

I realize this is a touchy subject and there’s no way I’m getting out of the lion pit alive by bringing it up and I know I’m about to get the rage of haters throwing “but it could genetic”, but even so, making your food pyramid different fast food restaurants probably doesn’t help.

The fact of the matter is, these people aren’t happy with their bodies. They feel guilty for being unhealthy and looking fat.

I mean it’s one thing to feel confident in yourself no matter what you look like. It’s another to say “You MUST think I’m beautiful.”

You should feel comfortable in your own skin, but you can’t change what people find beautiful. Some people will find you gorgeous, others quite ugly.

That’s sort of a metaphor in life. Some people are gonna love the shit out of you, others will hate your guts.

Where one crowd will cheer for you, another will boo you off stage. You can’t base your level of self esteem on how well you are liked and approved by others.

Sooner or later, you’ll have to come to the realization that no matter how much you think you deserve to feel beautiful, the responsibility to feel that way is on you.

These fat positive people are making society responsible for their own feelings of guilt. They feel guilty for not losing weight and choosing the instant gratification of ice cream and pizza instead.

What I’m saying is, it’s cool whatever you want to do, but the minute you try to enforce people to approve of your ways and approve of what you give up (eg. healthy eating and exercising)  is the minute you’ll get criticized. 

You can’t say “I’m this way ,so you have to like me.”  You have to say “I’m this way, like it or not.” Confidence is an inner personal thing that the rest of society can’t be hold accountable. If you’re feeling guilty for enabling certain habits, it’s not the responsibility of everyone else to make you feel less guilty.







Acceptance is your own responsibility. Just because you can’t accept yourself, doesn’t mean you should place that burden on others.


When you accept yourself, as well as the things you’ve given up, it doesn’t matter whether or not others do. Approval is totally unnecessary if you’re fully and completely comfortable in your own skin.

If you need a whole campaign to tell you you’re beautiful “no matter what size”, then the truth is, you don’t really believe you’re beautiful at all. Thing is, the people that felt confident and beautiful didn’t need any sort of fat positive moment to elicit those feelings. They just felt that way anyway.

It’s the people lacking self esteem that need any sort of “positivity” moment.

Genuine confidence is an internal game, not an external factor like approval.

One could argue, I suppose that the reason they lack self esteem is because of the fat shaming.

But I want to throw you this: SMOKERS make fat shaming null and void.

Like you don’t see smokers parading around with signs that say “ Black Tarred lungs are beautiful too”. 

And certainly, there are tons of messages, research, and PSAs saying “Smoking can KILL you.” Every smoker I know, myself included, isn’t completely oblivious to the fact that smoking is bad for you. Smokers know the risks. They know the hazards.

They just don’t care. They don’t give a fuck.

Smokers know what they’re doing is bad for them, but they’re not out there trying to convince people that coughing is cool.

They just accept the shame that’s brought onto them. 

You see they gave up a healthy heart and respiratory system in exchange for a brief calming of their nervers, but they’re not trying to make society at large feel guilty about that decision in the same way “pleasantly plump” people do about their eating habits.

Anyway, what I’m saying is, the point I’m trying to get at is quite simple.

Don’t give up on your goals. And if you do, don’t bitch and moan about it or expect other people not to shame you for it. Don't torture yourself through guilt or allow others to make you feel that guilt.

Relax man, just do whatever makes you happy. And that’s the lazy way.