I cannot count the number of times that I’ve been called lazy. The thing about it is, I’m not lazy. I’m just exhausted. For years, I felt like I was never doing enough. I was a single mom who worked at a very demanding job. When I was at work, I felt guilty about being at work and my kid being at the sitter. When I was at home, I felt guilty about not doing enough at work. I was trying to be a full-time provider and a full-time mom and felt like I wasn’t doing either very well. The whole time, my dreams were dying because I was wrapped up in being “realistic” in what I could and couldn’t do in my life. In short, the whole thing wore me out. My dreams slowly died. I was spending so much energy feeling guilty about what I wasn’t doing that I didn’t have anything left to pursue my true desires. After years of this, I was disenchanted with my dreams and exhausted from my internal battles. So, in many ways, I gave up. To a not-so-small part of the world, I started (and continued for years) to look lazy. I got sick. I got sick-and-tired. My body took over and gave me migraines to help me cope, but that just made everything worse because now I was doing less than before. I was my own worst enemy. And I believed the story that I was lazy.
Looking back, I can clearly see how I wore myself out to the point where I could barely function. The two biggest contributors – distraction (spending a lot of time and energy feeling guilty about what I wasn’t doing or being instead of focusing on what was in front of me in the moment) and trying to be perfect at doing two people’s jobs (full-time provider and full-time caretaker). I didn’t set boundaries for myself or with others in either area.
Looking back, I can also see now that I developed some serious skills in being efficient and finding a quicker and easier way to do things. I can get a lot accomplished in a short amount of time when I really want to. I just have to focus on what’s in front of me and stop feeling guilty about what I’m not doing right now. And when I do that, I “create” more time for myself. And I no longer feel the need to be busy for the sake of being busy – I can be strategic about how I spend my time.
Is someone calling you lazy without knowing the whole story? Don’t explain yourself. Just smile, thank them for their input, and get back to doing what you do. It’s perfectly OK to take a break and take care of yourself. Just find the spark of your dreams again and use those to fill all that time you have. And when you’re ready, you’ll take the world (or your corner of it) by storm and all those haters won’t know what hit them.
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Femme Fatale over 50 