When I tell people about my blog, the most common response is "You are anything but lazy!" I smile and mentally say to myself "you haven't talked to my husband about this topic." Verbally, however, I say "Thank you! That's the purpose of the blog! It keeps me from becoming a lazy slob which is my default mode."
On paper, I'm not lazy. I work a full time job as the senior designer for a New Orleans alternative newspaper; I built this blog from design up all on my own and do my best to be consistent with new content every week; I'm always working on some kind of side-project, whether it is illustrating a children's book and working to get it carried in local stores, trying to create a web comic (that one has been stalled for awhile, unfortunately), teaching myself to create a podcast for the Books, Booze + Bajingos bookclub, to my new venture of creating an online design business. Not to mention I am a wife and care-taker of three fur babies and one turtle. Yes, yes, on paper I am not lazy.
However, my typical day goes like this: get up with Mr. LL and help him get ready to go to work. He leaves a full hour before I do, so I help him get his lunch together, make coffee for the both of us and I find his wallet and keys while he gets ready. Once he's gone, I sit down and watch YouTube or read a book while I really wake up and enjoy my coffee. Then I get ready and drive from the ‘burbs to the city for work. I spend all day at the office and then come home and crash onto our very, dangerously comfortable couch. I watch some more YouTube or read a book, then I'll get around to making dinner...sometimes. I spend some quality time with Mr. LL if he isn't playing a video game. I stay up later than I should reading/playing a video game/watching YouTube and then crash around 12am or 1am. Rinse and repeat. On the weekends, if Mr. LL is working, I will do house work and work on the blog. If he is home, it's more couch time and some husband and wife time. So you see, in actuality, I'm super lazy.
Lately, though, something in the air at Casa Lazy has changed. I've found something that has put a new spark in my drive. I've been getting up same as usual, but instead of farting around once Mr. LL leaves, I'm on the computer, getting posts ready and working on my new project. When I get home from work, as long as it wasn't a soul sucking week like last week, I am on my computer working more on my project. What has gotten this lazy lady off her tuckus and hard at work? Well, that's a secret. For now.
I don't mean to be all secretive about it. I really don't, because everything inside of me wants to scream it from the roof tops! I've already mentioned that it is a design business, but I'm graphic designer, so that's not really giving much away. However, with announcing my now-shelved web comic as well as the it's-almost-ready-finally podcast, I feel like I set myself up for disappointment by not delivering those products by the imaginary, completely pulled out of ass deadlines I had set for them. I'm not putting that kind of pressure on this project. I'm very dedicated to it and have been putting my heart and free-time into like my life depended on it. I don't want to rush this project. I want it to launch with as much going for it as possible.
The point of this post is this: if you find something to light the fires within you, a lot of the laziness you might be experiencing will start to melt away. I think laziness has a lot to do with apathy and depression. While I love my home life, my work life has been unfulfilling as of late. I've been feeling directionless and unchallenged, even during stressful times at work. The stressful times weren't challenging me in a creative way, the stress came from having to wait for other people to do their jobs so I could do mine. And I was just working to be able to get home. I spend the majority of my time at work, and to have it bringing me down was reeking havoc on the rest of life. Once I found something that challenges me, makes me excited and rekindled my passion for graphic design, every thing else started to get better. So, it's possible to be lazy (I still need to do laundry) and be a boss. But the being a boss part helps make you way less lazy, in my case anyway.
