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My humble opinion: burnout exists, laziness doesn't
Laziness is a buzzword concept to describe way too many states of mind, downplaying the causes of lack of motivation.
I think there are some words that, if avoided, allow deeper investigation into important things, and "lazy" is in the top 10 of that list
Are you sure you're underperforming, or is that just an idea you came up with yourself? Have you talked to a boss or manager about their expectations for your role and if you are meeting those expectations?
It may just be a self-sabotaging thought, and getting confirmation that you are meeting expectations could let you relax and work at a preferred or natural pace without stressing about your performance.
Honestly that sounds a lot like me. I had a decent job but was underperforming, burnt out and depressed. I started at some point pulling out my facial hair as stress coping mechanism.
I ended up saving up enough to be without a job for a few months, quit and I've not looked back.
My hair is regrowing, I'm feeling less stressed than ever, I've got a positive outlook on life again and I'm finally getting back into hobbies.
if you're able to, talk to a mental health professional, share what you're feeling and let them help and guide you. If not, talk to your partner (if you have one) and get their opinion on how you're going.
I also acknowledge that my struggle is different to yours, and the decisions I've made are working for me. I think you need to talk to people and get their views on how you're doing, and figure out what's best for you
I had one of the most desirable jobs in my field. It was one that everyone thought was very cool when I was asked. I got burnt out. I was sad and depressed every day. When I was done with work, I didn't want to do anything that required energy. I just sat and watched tv or similar. That's burnt out.
I am extremely lazy at my current job. It's a pretty easy job, but I resent being assigned more responsibility (happened the other day). The added responsibility isn't that difficult and only happens one day per week, but I'm still annoyed. After work, I pretty much scroll Lemmy and watch streaming content, but I don't feel used up; I'm just lazy. That's lazy.
The difference is when you can't do more vs you choose to do less. It's subjective. Good luck!
What has helped me is I put together a daily checklist of every possible thing I have to do for any given day at work and check it off. I get overwhelmed sometimes and when I stick to my checklist I realize it’s really not that much I have to do.
Try doing that and checking it off as you go and you might see, as I did, I was completing tasks that I wasn’t suppose to be doing because I thought I was helping. Cut out stuff like that and stick to the list and you should see an improvement in your mood because you will feel like you’re actually getting stuff done.
The big symptom unique to burnout is anger. Ultimately leading to blowing up at coworkers. If you're not experiencing that it's probably not burnout.
Depression and ADHD might be good thing to check for.
There is is "being lazy" thats just capitalism way of saying you're not making your boss or society enough money.
Enjoy your life.
The word "lazy" exists for exploiters to shame their thralls if they aren't profiting them enough. Think about anyone who might call you lazy and their relationship to you. They are not your friends; you don't have to serve them.
If you're not satisfied with how you're living your life, that's meaningful. The protection from loss you have gained through your job doesn't balance against the stress of what you're doing. There are no easy answers but something needs to change. I would suggest working on those changes before you get burned all the way out, because at that point you'll be making changes whether you want to or not.
There's no such thing as "lazy". It's always, always, always a word used to make someone feel guilty for hitting a personal limit or threshold.
Even if you want to work on those thresholds and improve them, you can achieve that without framing yourself as fundamentally selfish and uncaring.
I think there is such a thing as lazy, but it's when you push your responsibilities off onto another person solely because you can get away with it. The ex who leaves the dishes dirty and tells you, "I don't know, they just come better when you wash them", for instance.
I think "selfish" is a better word for it in all instances, because some people are just selfish. Like, if you can't be bothered to return your shopping cart or pick up your dog's shit, then that's selfish. It's not anywhere near the same category as being too burnt out to do the dishes after a double shift, or wanting to sleep in on a day off.
Calling all of it "lazy" creates some imaginary obligation to the universe that simply does not exist. You don't owe the universe clean dishes or your time in the morning. If you have roommates and you left dishes in the sink, you are being selfish. If your kids have an early baseball game, and you are too hungover to show up, then you're being selfish. You are always obliged to return your cart and pick up after your dog.
Lazy exists. I am a fully capable person, but some times I just don't want to get up off the couch and wash the dishes, or finish painting the wall trim. Its not that I am sad, tired or depressed, it's just I'd rather be doing something else or nothing else.
That's not laziness, that's looking after yourself and your own needs, and prioritising that over non urgent chores.
At some point, the balance changes, and you do the stuff.
And if the balance doesn't change, and you always put it off, even when you shouldn't be, there's something going on behind it.
What going on is I don't feel like doing it LOL.
I worked with a former autoworker, his job was inspecting roof seal adhesive and hitting the button for next car. He said he sat in a chair and read a book and would push the button with his foot. I asked how he could see roof glue, he said "I could not see it, I just pushed the button" . Too me that is the essence of a lazy person. It was not related to physical or mental overload, he was a sports guy etc. He just didn't want to inconvienece himself with getting out of the chair or interrupt his book reading.
That's not mental overload, it's the opposite. It's a job without mental stimulation, boring, repetitive and requires very little cognitive processing. And people doing jobs like that seek stimulation to escape perpetual boredom.
Give that guy a job that didn't bore him to tears, and the picture would have been very different.
As I said, it's always about hitting a threshold, and boredom is a threshold. And if an employer cares about quality, rather than the appearance of quality, they'd have designed that job differently.
We worked in a high paced Engineering office together, after the auto job, he would put his feet up and pile boxes near his desk to avoid working and read a book. There was more than enough stimulation available, he would just rather do what he wanted than work. Not everthing is the employers' doing, some people just make poor choices, even given opportunity.
One of the best replies I've seen on social media! Allow me to be a zoomer and say, absolute W!
thank you for this.
The difference between lazy and burnout lies in how much you trust the person not working.
Genuinely well said.
I dunno but i think I'm both
Might be depression, at least it was for me
Laziness doesn't exist, it's made up, there's always an underlying cause
Laziness exists. It’s what causes me to not do my work around the house sometimes.
But what’s the root cause of your laziness?
I’m not being snarky - it’s a serious question. For myself, I’ve found that digging down to figure out where some of my behavioral traits are rooted is an extremely valuable and informative exercise.
Isn't lazyness just evolutionary trait? The need to conserve energy?
If lazyness is an evolutionary trait to conserve energy, why do we get bored (pushing us to spend energy) once we do so?
I'm not an expert, just read it somewhere. But I'd guess it might be because our current lives are miles away from the ones we evolved for and may not get the stimuli we require.
So then, which stimuli do you get and don't get that make you lazy and, for example, stop you from doing the dishes?
As I said, not an expert on this topic. But I feel like you are combining two different things.
Doing dishes is persumably something you don't enjoy and your survival is not dependent on it -> you conserve energy.
Boredom, I think, comes from the brain not having enough stimuli.
I see it as two different things. But you are better of asking someone who knows more.
I was trying to get you to question the believe that lazyness is an evolutionary trait. Like the post you replied to said: Find the root cause of your lazyness.
Because it's almost always not an evolutionary trait, it's avoiding negative emotions. As you said: Doing dishes (bad) -> do nothing (good) But, with boredom, this would result in this: Doing dishes (bad) -> do nothing (good) -> boredom (bad)
Thus, we get negative emotions again. But we can avoid the final negative emotions by lying on the couch and spending energy looking at a screen. And our chain looks like this: Doing dishes (bad) -> looking at screen (good)
Because being bored is hard. If you want to see how hard it is, decide to just stare at a blank wall for the next 30min-1h instead and watch your brain fight this decision as hard as it can.
Thus saying "I'm lazy" and "being lazy is an evolutionary trait" results in "I can't do anything about me being lazy". And that is an easy way to avoid having to face and work through those negative emotions.
Fair enough. I was not going for "it's evolutionary, so let's just do nothing". The whole argument herr is thay laziness doesn't exist, because there is a root cause. Well, this is just semantics really. Being lazy is not wanting to do something. Is there a root cause behind it? Sure. If you go far enough it's just biology (allegedly).
Does tiredness not exist? There is usually a root cause to you being tired.
I feel like this "lazyness doesn't exists" is there just because being lazy has negative conotations. I think being lazy is good. Sometimes you do need to wind down and save what energy you have. This ofc shouldn't be an excuse to not do anything ever. There is something as too much of a good thing and all that.
I guess I'll piggyback on the other comment and say laziness doesn't exist at work. People definitely have off days or hate their job, but I'd say pretty much all the "laziness" I have experienced in my life at different jobs usually boils down to awful work conditions, managers or bosses that don't care about you, not getting paid enough for the actual work, or general distain for your corporate overlords if you work for a big company. Some may call me lazy, but I'm working exactly as hard as I feel like they deserve when I'm 30 years old and still living in a studio apartment one paycheck away from being homeless. And I'm not gonna work at 100% when 100% of my needs are not being met. And I make more than anyone else in my family so I'm technically the "successful child."
There is also people who just hang on their phone all day or gossip in the kitchen. I have seen that in the best and in the worst working conditions.
There is good reason, why the principle "same pay for same work" usually does not include surveillance of productivity. But it does feel infuriating to not make 3x as much despite having 3x the productivity of some people that have a similar or even higher salary thanks to seniority, when i am basically financing their lack of productivity.
I agree that the term "laziness" is often used by management to shift blame onto the workers and i don't know how a solution could look like that would address real laziness without infringing on workers rights.
Sometimes the underlying cause is you don't want to be bothered with the task. I am highly motivated to complete tasks, but sometimes I will let stuff slide because I can't be bothered.
I had panic attacks just before start working, and my productivity was quite low. I hope you don't reach that kind of reaction before looking for help.
I used to feel like I was going to throw up every morning before work. Didn't happen on weekends.
Yes. If you take it that far there can me permanent trauma.
Tricky one to weigh up there. It might not be that you're lazy, you may well just be burned out, not working effectively (i.e. overworking yourself), or it could even be imposter syndrome. On the other hand, yes you could just be lazy, or you might just really hate your job. Hell, there have been times where I've felt unmotivated because our leadership team were just arseholes - sometimes a lack of motivation goes beyond just your own choices.
There just isn't enough data in a short post.
Take some leave, go get checked out by a doctor, talk to a friend/partner, take a look at job ads to see if anything sounds better than where you are.
I am really sorry that you are going through this. I really appreciate all of the people in these comments who are dispelling the myth of laziness. It’s hard not to fall into the hole of guilt and shame, and it’s something I really needed to hear right now. But to me it does sound like you are experiencing burnout, and maybe depression? I have ADHD and after about the 1 year mark I get very bored with work and it starts to take a very real toll on me so I start to under perform and it makes me feel really guilty. So I am trying to be more kind to myself and give myself some grace and acceptance.
Sounds a lot like burnout to me.
Take a vacation and see if that improves things. If so, burnout. If not, look for other reasons that you're lacking motivation.
Is either diagnosis really helpful in figuring out a solution?
One could be rehabilitation, the other discipline?
Why not both?
If money is the only motivation, and especially if some part of the job is demotivating for you (maybe ethically speaking), then I'd count that as burnout. Remember, they can never pay you what you're worth, because then there'd be no profit for them to leech. Also, the corporate entity has no morality. It's just a machine.
Try to rule out mental health issues first.
You might have autism/ADHD/ADD/depression.
You don’t sound lazy from your description. The people here claiming that there’s no such lazy are fucking crazy though.