I will be honest. I tried to read my reviews for each chapter, and I couldn’t even finish reading what I wrote. If I’m not even interested, who else would be?!

Is it wrong to start off an article talking down about my writing? Probably. Maybe. But who cares? This is just my writing evolution and what I’m learning as I try to publish something every Thursday. Today’s will be my third article and I’ve decided it won’t be a regurgitation of reviews of chapters 4 through 8 of Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Instead, I’ll try to unite all five chapters under a single topic. The topic today will be about laziness and why it’s so easy.

A common theme I’ve noticed in the first part of Thinking, Fast and Slow, is that our minds like to be in a state of ease. Our System 1, aka our subconscious, wants things to be so easy that it will make abnormal things seem normal after just a few instances, jump to conclusions, and make judgments as quickly and often as possible. When things are easy, we are most likely in a good mood and are comfortable with our environment. Why wouldn’t we always want that?

Many of us grew up with the idea that we should always be in a good mood. Things should be easy and convenient. This is the best way to live and it’s why we go to school, get jobs, and make money. With money comes the ease of life. And with the internet doing its thing, it’s strengthened the idea for convenience. Food can be delivered to your door. Entertainment is at our fingertips. Shows are just one Netflix click away. Hanging out with friends can be as simple as pressing the ‘power on’ button.

Laziness has become easier. Before technology, it was harder to be lazy. If we were hungry, we had to actually get off the couch and drive/commute/move to get food. If we wanted to hang out with friends, we had to go to someone’s house. This meant we probably had to shower or at least brush our teeth. Being a bum on the couch was harder. Don’t get me wrong, I was still lazy as fuck before technology. My average time of being a bum on the couch has just increased with the development of technology.

So coupled with technology, and being told that anything but a good mood was wrong, we now run into our Lazy Cycle. Our System 1 is easily primed, which is to say that a stimulus could influence our next thought or action, without our conscious intention. In our daily lives, we are bombarded with positive thinking, living your best life, how to be happy, other people’s snapshots of their awesome lives, and on and on Instagram goes. Our System 1 is primed for “good vibes only.”

Now, our mind systematically wants to keep things easy because that’s the best for us, right? And it is seeing repeatedly that everyone else is living awesome and are always in a good mood. We also want to be in a good mood. But when we have to work, think about finances, or look into self-development, we feel the opposite of “good.” Thinking about these things is the opposite of ease; we feel strain. And our minds do not want to be in any sort of strain. It’s uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

So we run, push away the feeling, hide it, hold it, ignore it. Anything but actually feel it. As time continues, we become more set in our ways of always wanting the good and never the bad, and god forbid the real ugly. It’s possible that the “good” isn’t even that “good” anymore. It’s actually pretty shitty, but it’s what we’re familiar with. So we stick to it and the Lazy Cycle continues.

The secret to breaking the Lazy Cycle, or any sort of cycle, is nothing fancy. In fact, we probably already know what the answer is, we just don’t want to admit it. Because it’s not familiar and our brain is screaming that it feels uncomfortable. We need to go back to being in a good mood! This is wrong! This hurts!

But is it really that uncomfortable? Is it really that painful? These sorts of questions are only questioned, and answered, by System 2. And System 2 is activated during a state of strain. It’s the window where we can actually reprogram our thinking.

And so the simple, god awful truth to breaking the Lazy Cycle is to get familiar with what causes strain. Take small steps repeatedly, everyday, in feeling what you’re running away from. Things won’t change immediately. It may take months or years to truly overcome and break whatever Cycle. However, it’s the daily action of stepping into the strain that will activate the part of your mind that questions and can reprogram how your subconscious thinks.

It’s how I wrote this article today. Because let’s face it, writing this was extremely uncomfortable and not familiar at all. My mind has been telling me this entire time to stop this horrible practice. But you know what? After all this, it doesn’t feel that bad.