Sloth, not to be confused with the cute slow moving animal. sloth in this case means the very essence of ultimate laziness (why do I need to lift a finger, I just want to relax and enjoy myself).
When it comes to sloth, different people have different definitions for it. For some it means not doing your duties or fulfilling your responsibilities, for others it means losing interest in life, for still others it could mean failing to do the things that you should do, i.e. inaction. You could look at the last one as akin to people not doing anything when something happens right in front of them, like when someone is being harassed or attacked and you ignore it because you don’t want to get mixed up in it. In other words, sloth could mean having no feeling for the world, other people or even yourself.
According to Wikipedia, Sloth includes the following characteristics:
- Despair
- Somnolence
- Idleness
- Tardiness
- Negligence
- Indolence
- Wrawness (meaning peevishness, ill temper or anger)
But the way I see it, simple laziness by itself isn’t that bad. My friends sometimes joke saying the lazy people are the ones that work smart, finding batter ways to get the job done more easily and quickly. By that logic, the true innovators are the laziest bunch in the world.
Besides which, you could argue and say that laziness gives you the ability to relax. After-all, you can’t just stay on 24/7, you need to be able to slow down, even stop sometimes, both mentally and physically if you want to keep going. Life is a marathon, you can’t run full sprint all the time, you need to pace yourself, otherwise you’ll just end up hurting yourself.
So what’s the lesson here? Well like I said before, laziness isn’t all bad, but you can’t expect things to be handed to you all the time. You need to experience life yourself too, and the only way to do that is to put in the work every now and then and to relax every now and then. It’s up to you how much you want or don’t want to do.
Alternative Yoga 