the room needs to change you.
I never really considered myself a scientist or artists. I am one of those who prefer saying things like „i love to spend time with …“ rather than „I am …“
In school I was this kid who choose to stick with art classes even after we were allowed to drop courses and eventhough it meant that my average would drop. In younger years I even convinced my parents for several holidays in a row, that it is a great investment to let me spend the last two weeks of summer in an art summer school.
The only tangible assets I carried home in both cases were unfinished projects but they were accompanied by plenty stories of amazing new friends and the beautiful artworks they created during that time.
The same applies for science. I think the teacher who hosted mathematics extra classes at my high school would testify without doubt that if you draw a section formula with an „regular appearances“ and „unsolved math problems“ an axis I would definitely have been marked „way above average“.
Looking back and joking about it seems funny now but at this time I think a lot of times my mobilisation of humorous energy was kind of an escape. Humor can be a powerful tool to nurture ambition and play with the chances of conflict. At the same time it can be used to avoid positive conflicts.
For a long time, I regularly used the word lazy as an explanation to why I am failing often. The problem of the word lazy is that we can use it as an easy excuse and thereby get around the effort to think about the actual root of why we are not acting.
People tend to tell kids they are lazy while using the word as a compliment. The problem about this compliment is that indirectly it can lead to some kind of fear. Some kind of stigma, that if you try harder and still do not meet expectations you lost this accomplishment of „only being to lazy to achieve greatness“.
There are at least three vicious circles of using the word lazy as a funny and sympathic way to explaine why again and again you have not accomplished goals of the past.
Vicious Circle No. 1
Laziness can be an easy excuse to get around thinking about the real reason why you are not acting.
Vicious Circle No. 2
Laziness can be an easy excuse to get around the risk of beeing responsible for what happens if you act.
Vicious Circle No. 3
Creating bullshit explanations feels way easier than actually reflecting. Still it burns your energy. Accept silence.
Over time I discovered that a lot of my failures in the past can be tracked back to not being tolerant a lot towards frustration. I am really bad at coping with the frustration of starting to learn something while I love the bliss that comes with flow.
Maybe that’s why I love walking very much. You get frustrated, you get angry, you get tired, you get bored. The only thing keeping you away from your target is not putting the next step in front of the other or not beeing able to change your target. No goals, no opponents, no stopwatch needed. This is exactly the kind of laziness I love.
As well I discovered the beauty and importance of the right company.
Today my father called and asked me „what happened to your work?“. The German word „Arbeit“ is used for both „thesis“ and „work“ in german language. Even though I knew, I asked. Not sure why, but maybe I was hoping to extend this moment of not having to tell him for another minute or two.
The need for me to put into words what we already knew, didn’t change much for the two of us. Of course this moment was related to disappointment, still both of us knew there was no need to talk further about and there were more important things to discuss. What happened has happened and cannot be changed. Work with it. More important there was no need for jokes, explanations or excuses. The simple answer to the follow-up question „why“ was „I didn’t meet the time“. No more words needed.
I am happy to have grown up with people who love to build things and work with people.
If you spill milk, be happy for the cat and know you have at least one friend who can teach you how to milk a cow.
Or as my mother said in this case: „You still have at least 40 years to start you doctor thesis.“
At one of my former workplaces there was an established saying that robots are lazy and stupid but can accomplish great work. Let us as humans never stop trying to accomplish great work no matter how lazy or foolish we feel. The right amount of „monkey humor“ will help us walking by the exhausting and cheerless milestones on our road while keeping fokus on the important goals.
Geht ein Zyklop zum Augearzt.
