100% agree.

I would also add our Individualistic and Puritanical culture to the mix of causes. We're told all of your problems are 100% in your control, and that if you're not working 100% of the time that you're a worthless piece of shit that doesn't deserve to live, that no structural issues exist, that there's nothing you can't 100% overcome with enough individual determination. It's so unbelievably toxic and unhealthy, and causes people to not only not have sympathy or empathy for others, but to see empathy as a negative trait, as a weakness.

This is pretty interesting. Reminds me of the ADHD posts on here where people get their meds right and are like "I have superpowers now. I just think about doing something and I do it."

I would like to add something else: laziness and relaxation are totally fine as a part of your life. Athletes know that how you recover from training is as important as the training you do. They literally schedule rest days, and rest periods in each day. If you want to do anything well, you have to have time away from it to recover.

What this comes down to and what is ultimately the better question, why are so many people unable to sympathizes with others?

If you’re laying out in the freezing cold, drinking some alcohol may be the only way to warm up and get to sleep

That is a popular myth. The truth is the opposite.

The feeling of warmth is the heat leaving your body and the receptors on your skin are detecting it. Meanwhile your core temperature is going down.

The solution, instead, is to look for what is holding the procrastinator back. If anxiety is the major barrier, the procrastinator actually needs to walk away from the computer/book/word document and engage in a relaxing activity. Being branded “lazy” by other people is likely to lead to the exact opposite behavior.

Often, though, the barrier is that procrastinators have executive functioning challenges — they struggle to divide a large responsibility into a series of discrete, specific, and ordered tasks. Here’s an example of executive functioning in action: I completed my dissertation (from proposal to data collection to final defense) in a little over a year. I was able to write my dissertation pretty easily and quickly because I knew that I had to a) compile research on the topic, b) outline the paper, c) schedule regular writing periods, and d) chip away at the paper, section by section, day by day, according to a schedule I had pre-determined.

Yeah, this matches my experience from when I used to tutor people. They tended to be below grade level and would fall victim to a fear of failure, since their self-esteem has taken hits from struggling with the work, in their mind the failure would be confirmation that they're stupid and would make them not want to try. Getting them to change their mentality resulted in more productive sessions going forward and accomplishing that required addressing the root causes of their anxiety and/or skill deficits.

I make high tech stuff but had a 40% attendence rate and was terrible in school. I've always loved learning.

Fantastic article, and I have the full book on hold at my library now :)

A lot of really good points on this, and I mostly agree. But I do go to university with a guy who is actively lazy: if there's a choice of spending 10 minutes on a task to do it properly or 30 seconds on it to do it shittily, he'll do the 30 second version every damned time because it's "less effort". He's a nightmare on group projects. We don't give him any tasks where it matters if the result is good anymore.

I'm lazy as fuck.

I just need time to go 10% as fast as it's going now...

this post inspired me to request a very needed deadline extension for the first time

I wish I could give this person a hug. Every day feels like a struggle to fit into what I'm supposed to be. It's exhausting for me, and I'm overall doing okay compared to many others. I can't imagine how hard it must be for other people.

I wish more people were understanding, and society didn't put so much strain on everyone.

Thanks, this is a great article. It completely tallies with my experience teaching higher ed as well.

Related podcast broadcast this week on Radio National Australia https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/latenightlive/is-free-will-an-illusion-/103702968