By: Mikey Rox*/Special to TRT—
Laziness is the byproduct of many catalysts—fear, depression, general unhappiness—and it can negatively affect all facets of your life. From costing you money to ruining relationships, here are five ways laziness can turn your world upside down if you let it.
- Financially
There’s a rather exhaustive list on Forbes.com on the ways laziness can bleed your bank account dry—from failing to negotiate better deals to putting off opening a retirement fund—but these expensive oversights begin on a micro-level, like buying memberships you don’t justify with enough use, for instance. And then there’s the bad habit of simply paying full price for things you buy because you don’t “feel like” looking for discounts or convince yourself you don’t have the time.
With regards to the latter, let me change your mind. Consider, as an example, planning a trip to the supermarket or, on a larger scale, vacation. If you dedicated time to researching savings and discounts, you will find money that you can keep.
Using coupons, cash-back deals, and shopping only sale items at the supermarket can reasonably save you upwards of $30 or more on a large order if you’re hitting the savings at all angles. You might think of that as an amount not worthy of your effort, but what if you think of the savings as a reward for your time dedication. How much do you make an hour at your full-time? Do you get paid $30 per hour at work? Do you think you deserve to pay yourself $30 an hour at home?
The same principle applies to vacations. I spend several hours searching for savings on every getaway and vacation I take. If at the end I’ve spent, say, three hours rounding up deals and I’ve saved $200, I can celebrate a job well done that I’ve managed to make nearly $67 an hour for myself, money that will now be better spent on the actual trip for dinners, drinks, or an experience I’ll remember for a lifetime.
- In Love
My marriage didn’t work for many reasons—both faults of our own—but one of my biggest gripes with my husband was his laziness. For most of our union, I was the chef, maid, caregiver to our dog, planner of date nights and vacations, and the instigator of what little sex we had, especially in the later years, and that took a major toll on my self-worth and eventually my general outlook on life. After years of trying to change his behavior (a futile effort in any relationship), I gave up. Not because I wanted to, but rather because I realized that his laziness was a result of not being in love with me. As complicated as our situation was, the root problem was as simple as that. If he could have admitted that about six or seven years earlier, we would’ve saved ourselves a hell of a lot of heartache… and money.
- Health-wise
Your sedentary lifestyle manifests itself in ways that directly impact your health, like weight gain, depression, and early death. Any study ever done on exercise will tell you that staying active improves your physical, mental and emotional health in myriad ways. But even if you don’t get too fat to feel good about yourself anymore or kick the bucket in an untimely fashion, the money you will spend on medical services to put a patch on the damage you’re doing to yourself could take you into a debt with no escape or at the very least limit your quality of life because you’re consistently in the doctor’s office when you would have been better off in a gym.
- Personally
We’re so involved with ourselves these days (when our faces aren’t buried in a device) that we’re all but convinced that we don’t have time for relationships. The memes are right – like the one where we make plans but cancel at the last minute because we never intended to follow through anyway. Why though? Don’t our “friends” deserve a couple of hours of our time and attention? If not, are they even our friends? Why do we play that game with them then instead of being truthful about not wanting to be around them in the first place? This mentality bleeds right into romantic relationships, too, with the swiping right and left and serial dating and the ADD of settling down ruining prospects of happiness that we’re disallowing ourselves. And for what—casual sex and Netflix binges? We can do better than that.
- Professionally
Laziness at work can get you fired, but it also prevents you from progressing. Your goal should be to show your company your capabilities and that you want to move up the ladder. And if you think you’re doing a killer job at that but not being recognized or compensated for it, schedule a talk with your boss to talk about more responsibilities and, yes, a raise. You may not get it immediately, but at least it’ll be on the table because you were motivated to address the situation. If the answer is no, reflect on what you have to offer if those skills are better suited somewhere else, and pursue something greater. You’re singly in control of that. It’s just a matter of how much effort you want to put into your own overall life satisfaction.
*Mikey Rox is an award-winning journalist and LGBT lifestyle expert whose work has been published in more than 100 outlets across the world. He spends his time writing from the beach with his dog Jaxon. Connect with Mikey on Instagram @mikeyrox.
