What's Anya Page? | Steph Anya Book Club discussion

One of my favorite quotes from this book happens in the very beginning. Davis says, "I do not think laziness exists. You know what does exist? Executive dysfunction, procrastination, feeling overwhelmed, perfectionism, trauma, amotivation, chronic pain, energy fatigue, depression, lack of skills, lack of support, and differing priorities."

What are your thoughts on this? Do you believe that laziness exists?

I think this statement was absolutely correct! No child is ever truly prepared for how constant adult responsibilities are - they can be like those mythological heads where you defeat one but three more heads grow back in its place.
And attempting to be a responsible adult has emphasised how important it is to have a good familial support system. There is a reason why generations used to live in the same household, everyone still had to be responsible but the volume of the responsibilities were shared out between many people.

Scilly wrote: "I think this statement was absolutely correct! No child is ever truly prepared for how constant adult responsibilities are - they can be like those mythological heads where you defeat one but three..."

That's a great point about the need for familial support. It reminds me of a quote on relational poverty from a book we read last year called What Happened To You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing.

"We are meant to distribute caregiving among the many adults in our “band”—our community. In a typical hunter-gatherer clan, for every child under six there were four developmentally more mature individuals who could model, discipline, nurture, and instruct the child. That is a 4:1 ratio: four developmentally mature individuals for each child under six. We now think that one caregiver for four young children (1:4) is “enriched.” That is 1/16th of what our developing social brain is looking for. That is relational poverty."

Hmm that's an interesting view point. While I can agree with some points, I'm not sure I fully agree.

I would describe laziness is an inate desire to consistently choose to avoid many of the symptoms listed.

So while someone may be going through procrastination, depression, feelings of being overwhelmed, etc, ... they can & eventually will get out of that state. Whereas someone who is inherently "lazy" can never escape this inclination to choose avoidance.

I should also state I haven't read the book but that's just my initial thoughts based on this quote.

I think the point of staying away from the term “lazy” is to avoid the moral shame that comes with the term. The consensus is that shame is an unhelpful feeling (shame = I’m bad and I can’t do anything about it; guilt = I’ve done something bad, but I want to do better next time). If you label yourself as “lazy”, then it’s that much harder to change your behavior in the desired direction because “lazy” becomes an inherent, immutable personality trait instead of a changeable state of being.

The quote Steph pulled from the beginning of the book reminds me of something Ali Abdaal wrote in “Feel Good Productivity” where he treats procrastination the same way that KC Davis treats laziness - it’s much more helpful to see your resistance to a task and examine where that resistance is coming from and deal with THAT first (google “The Unblock Method”). *Caveat, I think KC Davis’ book is way more helpful for folks who are neurodivergent because she specifically takes into account executive dysfunction. Ali Abdaal assumes neurotypicality.

So ultimately, that kind of looks like:
“I don’t want to do the dishes right now. Oh, why is that? I’ve just worked a 12 hour day. Am I tired? Yes, I’m tired. I’m going to take time to recharge before I do anything else. I’ll take a 20 minute nap and then come back to this.”
VS Shame -
“I don’t want to do the dishes right now. I’m so lazy, I’m a disgusting mess. Why can’t I just wash a dish after I use it? What’s wrong with me? It’s just dishes, it shouldn’t be this hard. Nobody else has trouble with this. Why can’t I be normal? That’s why I can never get anything done and everyone thinks I’m worthless.”