Kevin Zhu's Introductory Blog Post

Why Being Lazy Isn't the Worst Thing You Can Do With Your Life

"I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." -Bill Gates*

Seeing the quote, and knowing the kind the person I am, you might think this is just one of my distasteful jokes to sound slightly funny or to seem slightly interesting. However, I truly do believe that this quote shows one of the ways I view the world

If you ask anyone today a quality of a successful person today, one of the first things they might rattle off to you is "hardworking". On the flip side, if you ask for qualities of an unsuccessful person, I will guarantee, "lazy" is, if not the first, the second thing they will tell you. However, what exactly defines lazy? Is it a person who always sits on the couch watching TV? Or is it a person who never does homework, cuts class, and flunks all his exams? Or is it simply just someone who takes shortcuts on certain everyday tasks?

I believe, in today's society, the term lazy is quite misunderstood. When someone says the word lazy today, the first image that pops into many people's minds is a fat person lying down on a tattered, old couch, eating a slice of pizza, grease dripping down his 5 chins, watching The Biggest Loser on TV. This, to me is completely wrong. Lazy should not be such a derogative term. All I think that lazy should mean, is a one who is smart and skilled enough to know to cut a few corners and still get the same result.

For example, let's say you have a 10 page handwritten essay due the next day, and after binge watching Pretty Little Liars for the past 8 hours (oh, don't deny it, we all know you love that show), you realize you have not even gotten started on that assignment. Also, your crabby English teacher insists that you must cite all your sources in MLA format (which is enough writing in itself. Geez, why does MLA get to make all the rules?), and on top of that you must write the citations using the stupid algorithm she taught you in class. Of course, you don't care for using algorithms, so you decide to use easybib. Now, by taking this course of action, you may be called lazy or a cheater, but let's stop and question ourselves. Were you smart enough to cut a corner? Yes. Did you save a lot of time and effort? Yes. Did you get the same result? Yes. Did you hurt anybody in the process? No. (OK, let's be honest here. You aren't growing up in the 15th century like your English teacher did. Not knowing how to manually cite a source won't hinder you in your pursuit of academic success.)

So your friend who manually did all the citations got 100 on the paper, but you got an 100 also. You achieved your end result, and did less work than your friend did for it. In my corny example, all you save is a little time and a lot of sanity, but if this were in a big corporation, and someone finds an easier, or lazy way to do something, it could save the corporation millions or billions of dollars. Nobody called Henry Ford when he developed an easier and more efficient way to mass produce products, the assembly line, but everybody calls you lazy when you find an more efficient way to finish your English paper. Of course, Henry Ford's is on a much larger scale than yours, but essentially, both you and Ford are doing the same thing: finding an easier way to get something accomplished. 

I guess the point I'm trying to get across here is that cutting corners and being lazy should not be a bad thing. People are more innovative when they try to find a easier way to do something. If everybody just accepted the way we live, and not try to find ways to improve on it, then I would be writing this inside a cave, and hunting and gathering for my food. Technology was innovated so we could be lazier, and live life easier. So the next time you're faced with a daunting task, ask yourself, is this an appropriate time to cut corners and be lazy (washing the dishes, good time; building a house, not a good time). If so, don't be stupid, take the easier way out. Why do more more work when you don't have to?


Too Long Didn't Read? Or Couldn't Stand My Bad Jokes and Ranting?
It's not a bad thing to be lazy.


Background Information:

*The origin of this quote is actually not clear. Many people believe that Bill Gates was the one that said it, but there is not enough information to directly pinpoint the origin of this quote.

Bill Gates is an American business magnate, philanthropist, investor, computer programmer, and inventor. In 1975 Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft and served as CEO and chief software architect, and is the founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Up until recently, Bill Gates had been the richest person in the world.

For more info on Bill Gates, click here. 

To hear someone else's opinion on laziness, click here.