First Gentleman with Wilson Orhiunu
Email: babawill2000@gmail.com Twitter: @Babawilly
An unwillingness to exert effort despite possessing the means to do so is called laziness. I used to be called lazy from time to time growing up if my memory serves me right. I remember ‘soaking clothes’ in a bucket and forgetting them till they stank a few days later. I think I was more absent minded than lazy. Anyway the guy who invented washing machines was not making people lazy. Now I did practice my dance moves diligently and became proficient in my teenage years. There were many kids my age that did not practice and so could not do the moves. No one called them lazy. They were excused with words like “he is not into dancing”. But surely if a young lad wakes up and does not do his two-hour dance practice he is lazy or isn’t he? He has a body capable of movement and all that is needed is to play the music and get busy.
So what is laziness if not an unreluctance to do what the observer wishes you to do despite having the potential to learn how to do it or do it. The diagnosis of laziness is a spectator sport after all. Self-diagnosis is rare and fraught with errors due to observer bias. I once witnessed a girl call her boyfriend lazy when he was beaten up by a muscular man who weighed about 15kg heavier. Perhaps laziness is a myth. Maybe it is real but that does not excuse people to call their fellowmen lazy without justification. I once visited a couple who narrated an incident to me not for my entertainment or edification but to see which side I would take in their debate. It was in Lagos and the lady of the house recalled how six weeks ago gunshots woke them up at 2.30am. The lady told how she shook her husband into consciousness and told him to go and check out the noise. He flatly refused but rather suggested she go to next room and make sure the children were okay. On her return she found him asleep. She called him lazy and he disputed her summation of his character. They both looked to me for judgement and I refused to get involved. (One might say I was being lazy about it). “Bros, what do you really think?” I asked him.
“My vows were till death do us part not till suicide do us part,” he said laughing.
“Look at this coward. Our neighbour picked up his pistol and went to the window to fire a few shots at the armed robbers. Yeye!” his wife said.
“So, cowardice and the failure to bear arms is laziness in your book?” I asked, to which she nodded her yes. I thought about how easy it was to mistake a scarcity of love or the reluctance to display chivalry in a relationship for laziness. The man has made a judgement call to die another day preferably at a much later date. Can one really be lazy when one displays decisiveness and chooses not to risk life or spleen in the defence of his home in the face of bullets from an automatic weapon? It is a free world and people’s decisions will from time to time fail to meet our high expectations. Is that laziness on display or just a selfish observer lashing out at not getting her way?
A few people get a raw deal when it comes to being brandished as lazy.
Obese people are thought of as being lazy. Trust me, I know what people think. I was watching a music video with my son and complained that all the girls on display were thinner that a hair follicle on a Cambridge diet. His response? “No one wants to see fat people”.
Do your own quick research and study the magazines and television commercials. A lot of people on TV are slim despite broadcasting to an obese audience. “Fat does not sell” is the idea that one gets watching TV. So here is a question. Do you think fat people are lazy? Are sumo wrestlers lazy? I think not on both counts.
People are overweight because they eat more than they need to and then burn fewer calories than they need to. In other words, they make a net profit on calories. And like it is in finance, profits enlarge the vaults (waist line). Wearing an extra vest or coat is similar to wearing a thicker pad of fat. Eating is really dressing up after all. Dressing up the internal milieu with nutritious molecules. Is it now lazy to wear more fatty molecules?
The sumo wrestler works really hard each day perfecting his skills and building up his strength. He eats like a glutton to keep his body weight at an optimum level. Eating too much is just a love for food and an occupational hazard for him rather than laziness. There are many thin people achieving nothing because they cannot be bothered to work at anything so what’s fat got to do, got to do with it? (Excuse my Tina).
Those who love sleep
Go figure
Those who hate risk
I once heard a lady berate her man for not being “up and doing” like his friends who set up companies and have been successful. She called him a lazy man.
Those who answer “I don’t know” to over 90% of questions put to them
Those who don’t know things appear dull. It looks worse if they do not have a specialist area of knowledge. Some know everything about football and can easily be forgiven for ignorance about cricket or beach volleyball. Not knowing basic geography is laziness. You must know the name of the planet you live on. I get people asking all the time if Nigeria is next door to South Africa. Even Africans exist who do not know where Lesotho is. Na wetin na?
