Laziness Does Not Exist

The coronavirus pandemic has given us a lot to worry about: getting sick, managing relationships from a distance, taking care of kids while working from home. With all of these things to juggle, people are running into another worry, too: the worry that they’re not being productive enough, and that this lack of productivity makes them lazy and worthless. Social psychologist Devon Price terms this the laziness lie—the notion that our worth is tied up in our productivity, that our limits aren’t to be trusted, and that there’s always more we could be doing. In Laziness Does Not Exist, Price reveals all the ways these beliefs are misguided and offers suggestions for how to free oneself from the hold of the laziness lie.

Drawing on social science research and interviews with mental health professionals and former believers of the laziness lie, Price unpacks the ways that feelings of laziness can signal that we need rest or boundaries, encouraging people to listen to their limits at work and in relationships. Price appropriately attends to the role of structural factors of capitalism while also offering individual-level suggestions that readers can implement immediately. Laziness Does Not Exist advocates for compassion in a world that keeps asking more and more of us.