A man's wife gave him an earful ...
"You lazy layabout! It's the school holidays and that son of yours hasn't been outside the house all week! If you want to have an influence on him you've got to start spending some time with him!"
"Okay, okay," the man thought, but dared not utter.
So, the man took their son outside the house and into the backyard.
The father lay down on the grass in the gentle spring sun, clasped his hands behind his head for a pillow, closed his eyes and said, "Son, kick a ball around the yard and I'll watch."
However, the son lay down in the sun next to his father, clasped his little hands behind his little head and closed his eyes.
Before too long the sun got hot and the father said to the boy, "Son, go and get us both a bottle of water."
"I can't," replied the boy.
"Why not?" asked the father.
"Because I'm too tired," responded the boy.
The father smiled with pride and said, "Ahh, that's my boy!"
Laziness is contagious, often enjoyable and a tremendous source of mirth.
And yet, it's the excuse and even the "lie" behind much of the potential within ourselves that we have never released.
I say "lie" because laziness is an untruth on so many levels.
When we are lazy we lose the hour, the day and in a very real way, the fullness of our life, not because we actually lost but because we didn't even try.
When we are lazy we lose the hour, the day and in a very real way, the fullness of our life, not because we actually lost but because we didn't even try.
That's why calling someone a "loser" is one of the great misnomers of popular language.
To become a loser is a necessary risk and often the precursor on the road to becoming a winner. Those called "losers" should really be called "not triers"... but it doesn't sound as good, hey.
I'll tell you this true story because I come out of it looking good.
When I was only in year eight in high school I had no less than three very public fights with arguably the biggest student in our school. He picked the fights if that justifies my involvement.
Anyway, who won? Well, he won the first one ... and the other two. All of them very convincingly too I might add. Still, it won for me his and his friends' respect and taught me a powerful life lesson at an early age; that if you engage in a valid fight you'll never really lose.
In this age of COVID, we have had many valid reasons to give up and succumb to the temptation of laziness. Everything was shut except for the supermarkets, and they were all empty because everyone started becoming selfish and hoarding, so there was barely any food anyway, and millions lost their jobs, and people started fighting online, and then protests took to the streets, and then infections got worse and many people died and shutdowns got tighter ...
Who could blame people for feeling depressed and hopeless in 2020?
Yet, I do not believe I am being overly positive when I say that things are getting better in 2020.
Look at how the economic prophets of doom were wrong.
August's national unemployment figure was expected to rise with Daniel Andrews' lockdowns, and yet it fell from 7.5 per cent to 6.8 per cent - the second biggest monthly fall on record.
Not only did the national unemployment rate fall but Victoria's unemployment increase was only small - from 6.8 per cent in July to 7.1 per cent.
I wish it was different, but life is not very compassionate towards lazy people.
You will hear it said, "things can only get better".
No matter how bad things get, things can always get worse, especially when we are lazy.
The only antidote to laziness is action and only you can affect that.
Once the Pharisees demanded of Jesus to tell them when the kingdom of God was going to come.
Jesus gave them the interesting answer: "Behold, the kingdom of God is within you". He wasn't joking or ignoring their question.
Jesus was pointing out to them, and to us, that things begin to happen once we begin.
Everything we need to change our world is inside of us already. Never lie down and listen to laziness. It's always a lie.
Twitter: @frbrendanelee