There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

The holidays are a precious time of the year. It’s really the only time of the year, we, collectively as a society get to embrace our Leisure and kick our feet up, without any sort of backlash or criticism.

You can truly relax, for once, and not have to jump up and run from one obligation to the next. What’s more is no one is gonna give you shit about your lack of work ethic, as they usually would on a quote on quote “normal” day.

You, for at least a temporary moment in time, get to experience what it’s like to live a life of desire, doing what you want, when you want, instead of building a schedule around what you have to do or what you’re expected to do.
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Obligations and expectations are thrown out the window during the holidays. There are none. There’s just relaxation and peace of mind. There’s only being at ease. It’s quite an exception here in this hard work, success driven culture in which we live in.

If you want to spend the entire day lounged up in your PJs sipping eggnog and eating cookies during the holidays…

No one really cares. No one judges you. It’s all good. Go ahead. Go do you. Put on those warm fuzzy reindeer pjs with snowman slippers and dive onto the couch.

You’re just being festive. Now come any other time of the year, then you’re just being a self-indulgent prick or a good for nothing bum. God forbid if you decide to take a day off from work to eat those cookies in your oh so cozy pajamas at any other point throughout the year.

The holidays is a time to, well for lack of a better phrase, actually fucking enjoy yourself. You get to see what it’s like to not have to work, not have to do chores, not have to attend some sort of event, not have to…do anything, really.

It’s completely under your discretion what you choose to do. Wanna do nothing but play video games? Have at it. Wanna binge watch shows on Netflix? Go for it. Want to just snooze the day away? No problemo.

It’s really the only time of year that we have this supposed “freedom” in which our country of America was built on. You have freedom to do whatever the fuck you want and having that freedom feels fucking awesome. Laziness is freedom. We feel free because we can be lazy (and not be judged for it!)

You know, otherwise, outside of this little holiday fantasy world, snoozing the day away or binge watching or playing video games is all seen as nothing but a waste of time. It’s a waste of time to enjoy yourself. You must constantly be making sacrifices for your big corporate overlords. Don’t sit around. Get up and go! Is the message we’re constantly bombarded with.

You must exert all your energy and effort into being productive to the point where you’re physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted -- just straight up fatigued from the amount of shit on your plate. Having any sort of rest, well ha! That just makes you weak, that just makes you a good-for-nothing lazy bastard.

You don’t get to achieve happiness unless you work for it, is essentially what we’re told. We’re brainwashed to believe that happiness is an accomplishment and not a feeling, that it’s something we must work our asses off to get. You can’t be happy until you “make it”, until you’ve got the big mansion and the fancy car, the cool smart watch, and your own private yacht….or so we’re told.

Yet,then we celebrate the holidays, where we ain’t doin’ shit and you know what? Feel happy, feel *real* freaking happy. I mean there’s a reason people say “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and it’s because people are satisfied with what they have in the present. 

They’re not trying to impress anyone or earn any sort of approval. In fact, they’re not trying to take anything from the world for themselves; they give. They give what they can afford and it’s enough. It’s the thought that counts. The holidays is when people give what they have, rather than trying to give more than that.

 It’s the season of giving and people put aside their otherwise constant struggle to make a name for themselves and instead embrace generosity and harmony. 

We come together in our laziness, saying all the Dudes in the world are just enough. I’m a dude, he’s a dude, she’s a dude. We’re all Dudes. Just abiding doing our own thing, wearing festive PJs and sipping a beverage here, man. And in this act of abiding to our lazy nature, in this release of working hard to get more, we feel jolly and merry inside.

You see, looking for happiness in some measure of wealth and success will prevent you from ever attaining any sort of happiness at all. You’ll put yourself in a perpetual loop of wanting more, getting more, then wanting more again. You’ll always want a bigger house, a nice car, a larger paycheck, a grander set of jewelry.

Yet, during the holidays what you have to give is already enough; you ain’t gotta earn more or be more.

The holidays are the only time of year you’re seen as well…actually freaking human, not just a cog in the machine, not some sort of wage slave or work grunt, but an actual human being.

It’s fascinating isn’t it? How “wonderful” it is to be human. It feels so peaceful, so liberating.  It’s a Joy to the World! Typically, when it’s not the holiday time of year, you feel trapped in an ongoing pursuit to make more, do more, be more.

But during the holiday, there’s no “more” to seek after. What you’ve done is enough. Who you are is enough. It’s not about what you can do or what you can provide that makes you special. Your very existence, at its core, is enough to be wonderful, charming, beautiful, and sexy.

Gone are the to-do lists. Gone are the screaming bosses slamming a huge pile of work on your desk minutes before you clock out. Gone are the cynical people telling you to get off your ass and do something.

Just go home and enjoy yourself. That’s what you’re encouraged to do during the holiday. Simple as that.
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In doing so, people are in holly good spirits. Imagine for a second, if people were this laid back all the time, if we could all be lazy throughout the entire year, and not just a short little burst towards the end of it.

Well, we’d have a much happier society. The suicide rates would drop. Mental health would increase. People would be giving, looking more out for others, rather than themselves. We’d be living in a much more harmonious society if we allowed laziness to be okay always and not just during the holidays.

There would be peace on earth and mercy mild.

Think about it, man. How many times do you hear “Keep the Christmas spirit alive all year round?” It’s a common consensus among many.

Yet how can you “make spirits bright” all the time if you’re constantly undergoing the stress of a never-ending series of obligations and expectation?. If you’re expected to dress the right way, talk politically correct, eat properly (no cookies, eggnog, or figgy pudding)?

How can you be bright if you’re living a dull and dreary life of matching the “norm”, of following the same tryhard routine day in and day out, rather than having the freedom to express yourself in colorful ways like those bright Christmas tree lights?

You feel dull because you’re locked to chains of being what others expect you to be, namely an obedient little corporate slave, who’s entire existence is to serve for the profits of your overlords.

Freedom comes from laziness. Freedom comes in doing what you want, in saying you know what? My time and effort is worth more than what you’re paying me and I’m allowed to take the day off if you want. Freedom is having the courage to say “You can’t fire me. I quit. I’m done working. You don’t own my happiness.”

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Freedom is taking happiness back in your hands, back under your control. It’s doing things on YOUR TERMS, not your bosses, not your judging peers. YOURS.

You do what you want, when you want. You be your own boss

That’s where laziness comes in. It’s all tied together. You see, when you truly embrace your laziness, you’re not working to earn approval or trying hard to accomplish one thing or another. You’re simply…just enjoying yourself. Good old fashioned enjoyment.

So stay home this holiday.

Not to mention, the fact that we’re literally living through a global pandemic, there’s no better excuse than now to sit at home and quarantine yourself, aka relax and be in your lazy.

I’ve always said that [New Year’s Resolutions are bullshit,] namely because it’s often associated with striving hard to achieve some sort of big ass goal that never really amounts to anything.

New Year’s Resolutions are designed to push you into being “more”, which as we already talked about doesn’t lead to happiness. If you must go into the New Year with some sort of new goal or mindset to adapt, then I suggest you take one of the lazy.

Make it a point to make the other 360+ days of the year like you would a holiday. Relax and do what you want. 

Of course that won’t prevent people from judging or criticizing you.[ Haters are gonna hate. Procrastinators are gonna procrastinate.]

Besides, that fat jolly man in a red suit does the opposite of what we all do. Guy relaxes and does what he wants for the whole year and works ONE, one single night of the year, then takes a twelve month vacation.

Strive to be like that lazy Santa Claus. Strive to do absolutely jack diddly squat all year long. Make a grand total of ZERO progress. Take all the time off you need. Go on vacation from your vacation. Be the least impressive version of yourself. Embrace your inner-sloth and intertwine yourself with lazy.

In fact, being lazy is no longer something you do. It’s who you are. You aren’t lazy. Lazy is you.

Hark the harold, all dudes sing “Glory to the new Sloth King!”

Here’s to a marvelous 2022, fellow procrastin8r.

Take it easy during this next trip around the sun.






-N8