Laziness Has Lost Its Stigma

LAZINESS HAS LOST ITS STIGMA

By Domenick J. Maglio PhD Traditional Realist

The American people have remained silent while laziness has taken firm root in our society. This acceptance of laziness is contrary to the established "American Dream." Our citizens are given an opportunity to reach their goals through diligent effort, not by being lazy and demanding entitlements. We Americans have worked our way up the ladder saving a significant portion of our wages for investment in our own future.

Laziness is permeating the American way. Citizens of the USA are becoming numb to half-hearted efforts by our children, public servants and even small business people. We have lowered our standards of what makes an honest effort. Whenever a person says he is going to do something in a specific time period and fails to do it, too many of us are neglecting our duty by looking the other way. Many of us are learning to use a pathetic excuse to weasel out of these commitments with few or no consequences.

The epidemic of laziness has to have an enabler. In the early years it is usually the modern parent. The child who receives poor grades because he has not tried is told to try harder next time even though the parents know their child could easily do the assignments. Instead of getting on the child to finish his meager responsibilities at home and at school the parent's laziness passes the buck onto the spouse or the teacher. The lack of a challenging assignment by the teacher is called into question, not the child's irresponsibility to get their work in on time.

Laziness is a form of lying to oneself and others. “I’ll do it later” turns into “I had no time to do it.” Procrastinating is waiting until the last minute and usually rushing to get it done often in a shoddy way. The person who waits until the last minute is either overextended or does not take his commitments seriously.

Parents are not the only ones lowering their expectations of reasonable effort. The American consumer is doing the same. The waiter who does not bring the correct order or is lackadaisical in getting the food on the table in a timely manner receives the full tip without hearing any criticism. “Customer service” is a concept of the past or better put, an oxymoron.

Government workers on the local, state and federal levels feel they are entitled to more pay, more status and more benefits then their private sector counterparts performing the same job. Our public servants refuse to take a reasonable reduction in astronomical benefit packages or refuse to reduce their workforce through attrition to balance state and local budgets. They threaten to strike with other union allies to frighten older dependent citizens into submitting to unfair demands.

Just a decade ago it would be hard to imagine self-employed workers acting arrogantly enough not to do everything necessary to nail down a job. Even during this "Great Recession"' most often the American worker does not call back about a potential job or show up after making an appointment to give an estimate for a service. The work ethic of many small businessmen has gone from go-getter to "I'll do you a favor by doing the job at an exorbitant wage."

All of us, especially parents, need to start forcefully showing our children that laziness will no longer be a valid excuse for failing to get the job done. Parents should provide sufficient negative consequences to their children to improve their effort in school, sports, work or any other endeavor. They should support their children's teachers not undercut their authority. Parents should support each other increasing expectations for their children instead of putting down the parent who sets high standards by saying "you are too hard on your kids." They should stress that success comes through hard-nosed perseverance.

We must start with our children and expand to the general public. We need to show our children that a poor effort by a hired worker or anyone will not be tolerated. Our vigilance as buyers and employers is important in conveying the message to our children that laziness is not an acceptable behavior. We need to raise the bar of doing a conscientious job on every level of society.

Customers should tell any worker who does not fulfill his expectations exactly how his performance is inadequate. It is important to the delinquent workers to be put on notice to give them an opportunity to learn a lesson and get back on the right track.

Laziness must have a severe stigma attached on all levels of society or it will destroy both our economy and society from within. We will all suffer the consequences of a world where we pay for and expect one thing and get disappointed and frustrated by receiving terrible service and inferior goods.

Our nation will rise or fall on the contributions of all of us. When too many people are parasites, taking and not giving, we will cease to exist as a prosperous, viable nation. Only when the vast majority of us start punishing the lazy thus incentivizing them to become significant doers will we flourish.

You can visit Dr. Maglio at www.drmaglio.com.