Laziness is an awesome attribute to have. You get to do what you want, when you want, and don’t feel obligated to do anything else. You’re relaxed and at ease at all times. Things don’t bother you and you remain cool and laid back no matter what. You’re “energy efficient” and don’t put in more effort than absolutely necessary. I mean, ya gotta appreciate the fact that you are lazy. It’s only when you criticize yourself for being lazy does it become such a bad thing. It’s only when you harshly disapprove of your laziness rather than be thankful for it do you make it a burden. You may think to yourself that you’re just not good enough or never going to amount to anything due to the fact that you are lazy. But sometimes curses are a blessing in disguise and you have to look through the fog to get a clear picture. In other words, just because you are lazy right now, doesn’t mean things are terrible for you right now. You could of course replace “laziness” with whatever sort of perceived setback you are faced with. Maybe you’re broke ass poor. Maybe you’re single. Maybe you’re grieving over the loss of someone close. Being poor means you are frugal with your resources and not bound to be wasteful. It also means you know your friends like you for your wealth or money. Being single means you have freedom to do what you want, without accounting for another person’s wants, needs, and desires. There’s no negotiating with someone else in your decision-making process.Losing someone close means you can remember the things they taught you and live it in their legacy, so they never really die. See, we have to come to appreciate the things we have for what they are, even if on the surface they don’t seem really too great at all. Ya know, often we take for granted just how well we have it because we’re so focused on how things could be “better”. We want a better this or better that. A better car, a better job, a better husband, wife, or girlfriend/boyfriend. We have a longing for how the current circumstances could improve and fail to appreciate the value of what it is (or who it is) we already have. We’re more inclined to live in a distant future (which may not even come) than the actual present. Even more crazy is that once we achieve our “ideal”, there’s always another “better” that we’re seeking after. We could say “life would be much better once I have my own apartment”. Then you get said apartment and guess what? Now you want a bigger one. So you eventually get a bigger apartment. Great. Then what happens? You want an even bigger one, or maybe you want your own property. You want to buy a house. Then you want a house in a nicer neighborhood. And so on and so forth. We tend to look forward to the “next upgrade”, the “next step” more so than we appreciate what’s already immediately available right in front of us - right here, right now. Or maybe we don’t get more. Maybe we actually get less than what we had when we started. Things could take a turn for the worse. You end up losing what you had. And you’ll be looking back with nostalgia in your eye, thinking to yourself: “Man, those were the good days. I wish I knew they were the good days before things changed.” We throw ourselves in a loop. Wanting more, getting more, then wanting more again. Never stopping to appreciate what’s right here, right now, and just how good it really is. Or we’ll throw ourselves in a similar loop. Having something, taking it for granted, losing it, then wishing we had it again. Often, we fail to appreciate whatever we have in the moment. You have to appreciate life while you’re living it. Not after the fact, not after it’s already gone. Besides, life is a hell of a lot easier (and not to mention lazier) when you can lay back and feel grateful for things in the present, instead of sitting on the edge of your seat in either hopes or fear of what might happen in the future or painfully drowning yourself in regret of what happened or what no longer is about the past. Key word: might. It’s not for sure. It’s uncertain. What is certain is all the events taking place right now. Fear and hope are two sides of the same coin. Both are a fascination with the future of what could be, instead of that in the present. Granted, it’s 2020 and to say there’s been a lot of shit that happened this year would be an underestimate. But even during the year of the apocalypse, there’s still things to appreciate. Appreciation is something that we don’t typically seem to practice while it's under our possession. Using the 2020 covid pandemic as an example, I’m sure most of us took for granted small social gatherings at birthday parties and holidays. Now that we’re being discouraged to get together with our family and friends during those special occasions in order to “flatten the curve”, we look back to those times of eating Thanksgiving dinner with those close to us and long for it. It’s something that was spectacular, yet barely given a thought. And in what we lost, there is surely something we gained. Lying around all day being a procrastin8r is, for once, encouraged. It takes a global viral outbreak for the world to say “being lazy is okay”...and that’s something in the future, when it’s gone, when all of this blows away, we’ll look back and...appreciate it. It’s funny how we sort of look at the past with rose-colored glasses, appreciating the things we had, the things that were. We remember all the good things and forget the bad. You can look back at your high school days with a certain fondness of chillin’ with your friends. You forget the bogos homework assignments and the stupid school rules you had to follow. Yet, we’re so pessimistic about the present -- the things we have, the things that are. We have such a negative outlook on things while they are actually happening then years later look back in fond memory. But you don’t have to wait ‘til things are gone and fade away before showing appreciation for them. You can appreciate things right now while it’s still here, while you still have it. Rather than longing for or missing something that “used to be”, or even pining after something better, you can see the good in it all now Thanksgiving or not, it’s great to be thankful. We’re gonna look at how the lazy man practices thankfulness. Without further ado, let’s dive right into it. Appreciate the little shit. “Thank You” - those are words we seem to only say when there’s something significant that someone does for you. “Thank you for watching my dog while I took a month-long vacation to Cancun. Thank you for paying half of my car repair bill. Thank you for buying me front row concert tickets.” We feel genuinely thankful for big gifts and favors. But what about the small shit? What about when your partner makes pasta without garlic because s/he knows you hate garlic? What about your mother who listens to every single one of your podcast episodes? What about the guy or gal who holds the door open for you? Now we might say “Thank You” to those small gestures in order to maintain some form of politeness, but we don’t actually have the feeling of being thankful at all. It’s like “a given” and just something that happened. We take it for granted It’s not just things that someone does for us that we take for granted though. Things we have, like a roof over our head or warm towels from the dryer or food in the fridge are just things we don’t really think all that much about, yet alone have thankful and thoughtful thoughts about them. But in reality, they’re truly special. In order to begin to appreciate things on a genuine level, you have to imagine losing it. As backwards as that may sound - just imagine if you were to lose the things or people in your life. Kinda makes you start to see how awesome they all are, how much they really mean to you. You have to take the attitude of “I’m gonna love you, like I’m gonna lose you.” Cue Meghan Trainor. Pretend this is the last chance you’ll ever have to see your friend, the last chance you have to sit on your couch and watch TV, the last chance you’ll have to call your mother. And just think: one day, it will be your last chance. Everything that’s already gone now, had a “last time” that it happened. You’d probably wanna go back and experience it “just one more time.” But you can’t. Take the lesson to experience thankfulness NOW, while you still can. Make everything the last time, every time. Live this way and you’ll never really lose anything, you’ll simply have it while it’s here. Getting food delivered through an app on your phone, hearing your favorite song on your iPod shuffle, the smell of bacon for your late night breakfast. It all seems like nothing important. Trivial shit. Nadda. But imagine if you didn’t have it, and you’ll soon see how much it really means. Be present. Focus on what IS, not what could be or could have been Instead of being thankful for what you do have, here, in the present, we tend to imagine what we could have. We compare what we have versus what we could have in our imagination and are left feeling unsatisfied. You could have a nicer car. You could have the bigger house. You could have fancier clothes. You could have a partner that has more time to be with you and isn’t always working. We’re always thinking of what we DON’T have or that we LOST. Rarely does it come to mind what we actually HAVE.We’re distracted by things in our mind that keep us from being thankful. To be thankful is to be present. It’s to see the value of “now” and what is, not to long for something to return or something to come soon. In order to be thankful, you can’t be distracted by these imaginary things that don’t exist. The past is gone. It no longer exists. The future is unwritten. It doesn’t exist yet. The only thing that does exist, the only thing that’s true, is the present. Living “back then” or “until then” does us no good. It creates not just lack of appreciation, but an aching feeling of not having or being enough. You can’t be thankful for something that you had or something you will have, because the fact of the matter is, you don’t have it. Not right now, anyway. But that’s okay. Look at what you do have. Be in the moment, be in the present. Tell yourself: “This is enough. I have enough. Everything is good enough for me.” You need to vibe with what’s going on in the now, dude. Be in your surroundings and start to notice the things you might take for granted. Maybe it’s the way the sun lights on your porch. Such a simple thing. A dumb thing. But there’s beauty in it. Again, you have to picture not having that little sunlight in order to see how much it means. It could be dark. You could live in a cave, homeless. And even if you did, you get to be at peace with nature, not interrupted by the busywork of traffic and crowds passing by. There’s always something to appreciate in every situation, no matter how bad or how hard it may seem. Relax, embrace your laziness, and take it all in. It’s all perspective.
You can’t simultaneously live in appreciation and worry. Worrying is the opposite of appreciation. It’s thinking about what you don’t have. You’re worried about paying bills because you don’t have much money. You’re worried about being forever alone because you don’t have a significant other. You’re worried about getting places because you don’t have a car. All this worrying makes you ungrateful. It makes you ungrateful for the things that you do have. You’re sittin’ there thinking about what you don’t have and can’t even see the freaking awesomeness right under your nose. Allow yourself to see the best in your current situation and don’t get so caught up in the downside of it. If you have nothing to appreciate, or you say you do, you’re, again focused on either the past or future. You’re not being present with yourself. You’re stuck in a perspective that there’s nothing worth appreciating due to the fact that you’re only showing appreciation for that in which you don’t have (yet or any more) Kinda screwy how that works. “I would appreciate it if I had...more money, more this, more that, more insert blank!” Or.. “I would appreciate it if I *still* had...blank. No, you want to just appreciate IT. No IFs! Humble yourself a little. Put yourself in the perspective that all you could ever have, all that you could ever need, you have RIGHT NOW. Stop wasting time longing for more. Stop pining over the loss in the past. Be thankful that you’re who you are and you’re where you’re at....right now. After all, one day, you won’t be. Happy Thanksgiving and Take it real easy, N8
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