My Favorite Deadly Sin

I’ve been reading productivity web sites in the last few months. Most recently, I’ve been reading www.stevepavlina.com, and for a while I left the page about how to become an early riser open in my browser.

I don’t write here in praise of sloth, nor is this confession. It’s just admission. I am slothful.

I like the first definition of sloth best: a “disinclination to work.” I don’t consider myself lazy, or other synonyms for sloth. I’m just disinclined.

However, I am beginning to tire of sloth. If that sounds funny, good.

I have a couple of barriers to becoming less slothful. First, I must alter habits and mindsets that dispose me to do nothing rather than something. Second, and more insidiously, I don’t like productive people. They variously seem brusque, boring, materialistic, self-centered, and while perhaps not unfriendly, they don’t seem to want to hang out, to take time, to enjoy people and being where they are. Whatever they’re doing is more important than the people they’re with.

The first thing I feel confident I can overcome with time and application. Once I want it (and I am coming around to want it), I’ll pick it up.

The second thing I need to find some peace with. I don’t want to be a person for whom love is subsidiary to agenda. I don’t want something besides being where I am to take precedence. But being "productive" seems at odds with that mindset. I don't know how to reconcile them yet.