I Don’t Want To Work

I don’t like to work.

There, I said it. Given the choice to work or lie on the floor like a worm, the latter will nearly always be my preference. I was told to tell you I’m kidding which I’m now doing reluctantly from the floor.

Photo by Emilio Garcia on Unsplash

I give equal footing to all my work aversions, income-producing or not. It can take me a year to get my pictures hung, and I almost never do the dishes before bed.

Speaking of beds, you can guess how that goes. I once watched a video of some sort of military guy making a speech about how success and virtue stem from bed-making. It was a great speech. I still don’t make my bed. If the path to virtuousness is a well-made bed then there’s a toasty seat in hell waiting for me.

Love of work. The blood singing
in that. The fine high rise
of it into the work. A man says,
I’m working. Or, I worked today.

Work became all-consuming in my thirties. That’s probably true for most people. You’re building, building, building a life and career. My ex-husband and I built a huge house and opened a business. Notice the ex part.

That home needed constant work. An acre of land, hot tub, thousands of square feet to clean and heat. I think of that time as working very hard to build a poorly fit life.

I kept waiting to be the sort of woman who loved managing a big house (you’ve arrived!) or cleaned bathrooms with skilled gusto. At fifty I downsized to a condo and still hired a housekeeper. I’m happy in a way that’s hard to explain. Satisfied, even.

So what does a self-proclaimed lazy person do for income-producing work?

Open a restaurant. You read that right.

I didn’t even have the good sense to buy an existing concept or locate it in a building that had once housed a restaurant. Yes, I not only opened a restaurant but did so from scratch. Remodel, concept, staff, supplies, everything. If I end up in hell for not making my bed it will still be more pleasant than getting that enterprise off the ground and hardest of all, profitable.

This is the value of self-knowledge. It keeps you from undertaking things with a why not? attitude (because it’s you…