Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 433. I picked the title of today’s Wake Up Call because I want to share what Pema Chodron says about laziness in The Places That Scare You. But, I have my doubts that “laziness” and “lawyering.” In a way, laziness and lawyering is some kind of fable. In a way, I’m afraid we can be super lazy.
When I first think of laziness, I think of getting things done, and I think of someone who doesn’t do that, or won’t pitch in, or won’t learn. I think of myself when I don’t want to unload the dishwasher (as opposed to when I’m just plain tuckered, and too tired to unload the dishwasher). Or I think of skimming a book instead of reading it through (as opposed to when I get plenty by skimming).
Pema’s take on laziness is a little more investigatory – no surprise there, since she’s all about our own practice of investigating our experience. Regarding laziness, she says there are three kinds: comfort orientation, loss of heart, and “couldn’t care less.”
Comfort orientation laziness isn’t ordinary appreciation for comfort. I like my comforts. I like to be warm when it’s cold and let’s just call it: I like a soft cashmere sweater as much as anyone. I like to be cool when it’s hot, although I was more of a shade person than an AC person, until these last few scorching years. I like to eat relatively close to when I get hungry although I’m always happy to wait for a great meal.
Comfort orientation laziness is not those things. Comfort orientation laziness is a strong desire, and then acting on that desire, to avoid the slightest bit of discomfort. Another way of saying it is, it’s not wanting to be in touch with, or maybe we could say “inconvenienced by,” the texture of life.
Someone who stands relatively patiently, dripping wet but waiting their turn for a warm shower at the pool as the air is cooling off, is not having comfort orientation laziness, even if their teeth are a bit chattery, as long as they’re laughing or not taking the moment too seriously. They’re being patient – not only with whoever is in the shower, but also with their own discomfort. In my experience this patience is portable: when I can relax my shivering body and laugh and wait my turn, I can do that elsewhere, too, relaxing and bearing a long day on Zoom, a meal at a restaurant that arrives after everyone else has been served, traffic. Pema is pointing out comfort orientation as a way to remind us that it’s possible to train ourselves to be patient with the texture of life, or you could say, to be unlazy in relationship to discomfort.
This feels important considering how uncomfortable practicing law can be: people are late, people are unkind and yell, people send pleadings that are inarticulate or grammatically incorrect or just plain ridiculous, and in my experience all of this, and much more in our hallowed profession, can create discomfort and make it easy for me, anyway, to lash out: “if someone’s going to oppose me, can’t they at least spell correctly?” That kind of thing.
Pema points right to this. She says we need to cultivate patience and an easygoing nature in relationship to discomfort, or we can become aggressive. This or that didn’t go my way and now we’re angry, even though it’s nothing more than things just making us uncomfortable. She nails it when she says “[w]e become outraged at inconvenience.”
This kind of laziness and the aggression it can foment is off-putting. It affects whether or not people want to work with us, or for us. I worked for a partner once who had a lot of comfort orientation laziness and he was always running down the hall screaming at someone for some small infraction. It was unpleasant, for everyone.
Loss of heart laziness is a form of self-pity. We sit around counting up the things we don’t have, the people who don’t love us, the accolades we should have gotten and didn’t. We forget that we need to help ourselves, take care of ourselves, put on our own oxygen mask.
People always make it sound so easy, taking care of ourselves. And maybe for you it is and if so, I love that. For me it hasn’t always been…and sometimes it’s still not. I’ve been a loss of heart lazy person many times in my life. My form isn’t so much sitting around watching Netflix, though, it’s more lawyerly: I’ve worked far too hard, or too much, or I’ve take on too much, or forgotten to say “no” for, oh, I don’t know, years at a time. And then I’ve caught myself sitting around (when I’ve taken a moment to sit around), pitying myself for all that.
Pema reminds us of the obvious: that loss of heart laziness results in forgetting how to take care of ourselves. Sometimes I feel like our whole profession has this: a forgetfulness around that we really have to take care of ourselves, first. Put on our own oxygen mask.
“Couldn’t care less” laziness is pretty much what it sounds like: we’re too lazy to care about anything or anyone. It’s loss of heart laziness without the any vulnerability. It’s edgy, aggressive: we can get violent and take out our apathy on ourselves. The statistics in our profession are not good on this kind of laziness: that, “it’s all going south so why shouldn’t I go with it” mentality that can lead to depression or even suicide. It’s a profound kind of laziness around not taking care of ourselves, not reaching out for the help we need, not setting healthy boundaries.
All in all, these three kinds of laziness are about not taking the time to be caring and loving towards our bodies, minds, and hearts. And in addition, Pema says, we tend to meet these kinds of laziness when we do notice that’s what’s happening, by either attacking ourselves for not doing a better job, indulging in our self-pity, or ignoring our loss of heart or “don’t care” attitude. Her advice is to instead become inquisitive and then learn to stay with whatever mood we notice or information we get. Mindfulness, and learning to stay: her consistent, powerful messages.
I would also say, though, that in a profession that 100% disallows laziness of any kind, we might also consider self-compassion. For me, when I remember to practice it, self-compassion around comfort orientation laziness reminds me that my intolerance for small (and large) mistakes arises out of how much pressure there is in the law to make sure everything is perfect. Self-compassion around loss of heart laziness and “couldn’t care less” laziness reminds me to focus on gratitude, first, because a lot does go well and I’m decent at my work and I have a lot. It also reminds me to take care of myself, put on my own oxygen mask, so that I’m always watching and replenishing my own energy and good will and heart, because that’s what gives me the ability – much more than my training or education – to then take good care of the people I represent and teach and love.
