Laziness

Sometimes, as I'm about to leave the house for tuition, if I have any simple homework from school at the moment - for instance, Additional Mathematics - then I take it along to tuition. At the end of the tuition class, as I wait outside for my ride to come, that's when I take out my homework and perhaps find the answers for half of the questions on that day. And sometimes, a classmate will look over my shoulder, and see me doing homework while waiting for my ride to come. Their natural reaction is, of course, to say "Wow, you're so hardworking." Sometimes they're sarcastic too. But as for me, I'm like "What?"

People think I'm hardworking because it seems as though I'm trying to do as much work as I can while waiting around, as it may be, for the bus, or for my mother to pick me up after school. They are mistaken. The truth is, I do homework all the time because I'm lazy.

What defines laziness? Some think that laziness is the lack of motivation to do any sort of work. In my opinion, that is not laziness - that is merely slothfulness. Laziness is when a person actually puts in effort to avoid doing work. Technically, a hard-working person would do his homework all the time as well, but for the reason that he would be able to put in extra time studying before going to sleep at night. That would be hard-working. But that is not me. I do homework all the time so that at night, when everyone else is doing their homework, I'll be playing video games because I finished all my homework on the way home from school in the traffic jam. That is not hard-working.

Put it simply:  Hard-working is when a person does the work he needs to do, at a time when he does not need to do it, so that he will have time to do work that he does not need to do later on, and can go to sleep having accomplished more that day. Laziness is when a person does the work that he needs to do, at a time when he does not need to do it, so that he does not need to do it later and can spend that time slacking off.

The next time you see someone solving Algebra while waiting for the bus after school, think about what he will be doing later tonight when everyone else is doing their homework, before you strart calling him hard-working.