Guide to being lazy for the lazy-impaired

Say you’re the average, hard-working junior buried in an SAT book, stuck in a cycle of automaton-esque work. Then, the year blurs by and — what — suddenly you’ve been notified of your college acceptance, you’ve lost all motivation for homework (have fun listening to underclassmen worry about grades), you go home and you have absolutely, nothing to do but sit around and watch the paint peel. 

It is beauty incarnate. For a while, at least.  

But after the paint has peeled and you’ve discovered the number of tiles on your roof numbers exactly 145 and a half (counted thrice) and you’ve watched “Game of Thrones” three times through and every new TV show requires 45 minutes of attention to the pilot which you really don’t have… 

Without further ado, here are the several stages of a second-semester senior:

 

1. Attempt to do fun things with friends. 

You’ve got plans to go to the beach, to frolic in the winter sun (bring an overcoat) and gaze out at the beautiful, raging sea (WHAT DID YOU SAY? SORRY I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF WATER SMASHING INTO SAND AT ALARMING SPEEDS). But, inevitably, That Guy in your friend group is busy. Usually it’s the music students, who have their competitions conveniently scheduled at the time when people are having fun. 

“We’ll be free once we’re done with [insert competition here],” say they, fingers poised lightly over the piano or clarinet. You end up hanging out at their house and playing video games until your eyelids drop off. Junk food replaces beachside lunches; picturesque, beachside pictures by #sleepingselfies. And nothing ever happens because the siren song of inactivity eventually teaches you a truth: Planning takes effort. 

And we all know that effort is for other people. 

 

2. Awareness

You slowly become aware of your sluggishness. Your parents exist again. “HOW DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING TO DO FIRST SEMESTER IN COLLEGE?” they ask. Apparently the key to being heard over ear phones is repeating what you say, but when that doesn’t work parents can get physical and rip earphones from ear. “DID YOU HEAR ME? HEY — DID YOU HEAR ME, YOU LAZY PIG?”

How rude and insulting. To pigs. Those creatures keep their rooms clean and serve a purpose (pork). We simply take up space. 

 

3. Struggle

Eventually, the existential questions come: Why have I played video games for the past 10 hours? Or, more so: Why can’t I feel my butt anymore? Did my fingers always taste like Cheetos? I should get more Cheetos. 

You feel a dull sense of uselessness, inactivity. Boredom in entertainment. Your head hurts when you wake up at 7 to go to school with four hours of sleep (of course, you’ll take a five hour nap later). Your eyes are blurry; stomach hungry — so you put your head down in your class and sleep, dream of noodles and hamburgers and microwaved TV dinners. 

 

4. Revelation

In your class-fueled sleep, you dream lucidly. You see your future falling away under laziness, that bright goal onto which you had poured your years, disintegrating into dust. You see a microwave. You enter the microwave, into Narnia. In the words of a redditor: “The lion, the witch, and the hotpocket.”

You see Aslan the lion, King of Beasts, son of the Emperor-Over-the-Sea, lord of Narnia, symbol of Jesus H. Christ Superstar. 

He turns to you and growls, “Son, you’re wasting your life.” Then he turns into a hotpocket and jumps into your mouth. 

You “nope” out of there.

Nope. Nopenopenope. Noppitynope. 

 

5. Awakening

You awaken gasping for air. You realize this is because you were sleeping on your arm and constricting your lungs. Your teacher is looking at you. “Son, you better get your act together.” 

He too turns into a hotpocket, and is devoured by the rest of the class. A pride of lions. 

 

6. Awakening part two

You, drooling on your keyboard by the fluorescent light of your computer screen — it’s 5 a.m. — awaken for real this time. You decide to get your life together, to pull yourself up “by the bootstraps.” So, hurried by fear you start working, start drinking coffee and listening in class.

The week goes by smoothly. While you’re still constantly tired, you feel somewhat accomplished. Doing homework, it turns out, actually helps you listen in class. You march on and your parents stop bothering you because you’re constantly working, and in your spare time, why, you help out with house chores. You are now That Guy who’s not going to the beach. Your friends call you a word that rhymes with “bassbowl.”

 

7. Nothing is forever

It’s a Sunday morning and a book beckons to you. Ah, homework, you say. But, you think, you deserve a break. And reading is like learning, right? The book falls into your lap and you disappear for a few hours. 

The book leads to its movie adaptation, the movie adaptation to fan fiction and — good Lord, you are an idiot. It’s 11 p.m. and there’s no way you’re going to finish your homework. I mean, you might as well play some video games, right? How much could it hurt?

A disruption in schedule is the end. Work is about getting into the rhythm of things, and a hiccup is not so much a hiccup but a symptom of choking. 

You spend the next few days in abject denial, trying to work, only to be drawn like a fly to fun and games. Depressed? Not really. Things are fun again, you’ve found a new TV show, you’re starting to eat healthy foods like Big Macs (it has green things in it). You did a recount: You actually have 145.6 tiles on your roof. You even manage to go to the beach — you find a secret shore by a cliff and scramble down on your butt and then you run free by the sea, the spray getting into your hair and the water sloshing onto your bare feet. 

The sun shines brighter than a computer screen in the dark. The fog has parted. You gaze out at future’s horizon, and you — a second-semester senior — feel complete, utter calm. 

Second semester and childhood are ending fast. Sometimes it’s nice just to see time stand still.