Laziness

When I was sitting on my porcelain throne this Sunday morning, I had some interesting thoughts. I read the papers, I watch TV, I go to college and all I hear is that Filipinos are lazy. "You students are lazy." "People in this country are lazy." "Don't give money to the blind beggar with no arms. He's just lazy." That's just observation and the stereotype is that Filipinos are regular "Juan Tamads" but I'm going to go the extra mile and try to explain why people are this way. After thinking long and hard about it, I thought of three reasons why people are lazy. I know a thing or two about laziness so here you go.

The first reason is that people are too damn cheerful and content. If the Social Studies books and Magazines are to be believed, Filipinos are one of the most nauseatingly happy people on earth. So happy in fact that Filipinos just smile through all the hardships, injustices and bullshit they have to deal with on a daily basis. Yes, it seems people here are content to just sit around convincing themselves that, "It's not so bad." Well, It is that bad. Why can't we be more like those fat Yankee Americans who complain and bitch to their government when it isn't doing it's job right? Now, that kind of attitude would spur a little progress instead of laying back and taking it, eh? Even admitting there's a problem is a step forward. We really should stop smiling, get angry and use that anger energy to improve our situation like demand our own incompetent government to shape up or show some initiative and fix the problem on our own.

The second reason is simply selfishness. Filipinos and people in general naturally tend toward things that offer the greatest good for the least effort. Pretty simple, nothing wrong with this per se, but it is important to define what one means by "good" and the whole "least effort" thing. For who's good exactly? Mine? Yours? If you do things for your own self-interest, you will inevitably lean towards laziness. "I won't help my neighbors fix their roof because it's their problem not mine." "I don't want to help, I'd rather watch TV." Oh, I know about this. I'm not some self-righteous douche, I'm as guilty of this as everyone else and screw you if you think you're innocent.It's important to have long-term goals to work for other than immediate gratification. Being community oriented and doing good for society first is a kind of proactive medicine for laziness. Where is that Bayanihan spirit? Well, bring it back morons! We need to drop the "least effort" part, nothing worthwhile in life is easy. Man, that was deep.

Lastly, is that there is little incentive i being industrious. Unlike the previous two which you could fix in yourself this one is a cancer of society. Let's face it, Philippine society frowns on overachievers. Good old crab mentality at work. I have seen people work their asses off yet corrupt pricks who cheat the system get more money than they will ever make. People work hard for years for that promotion but the boss man picks a useless , boot lick, suck up, crony yes-man over you instead. Some people study hard very hard yet more people just cheat and get away with it. You do your homework but people end up copying it off you in the morning. Culture is hard to reverse and this is probably the reason why so many good men leave for greener pastures abroad. They are unappreciated. What we should do, is punish the corrupt and reward hard work and honesty. I could not type that last part with a straight face. I don't know if this is ever going to happen. People are too content with the status quo and frankly, people like to cheat because it requires little effort compared to the hard way.