WHY LAZINESS IS A LUXURIOUS MINDSET THAT I CAN NO LONGER AFFORD TO OWN

The truth is ... I hate when people tell me that I work too much. Yes, I do work too much, but I hate when people say it to me in a condescending sort of way. I do not like it when my “busyness” or “work-a-holic” tendencies are used as an excuse to exclude me or to speak for me. I don’t hate it in an angry sort of way; it’s more confusing than anything as I feel that perhaps I’m not making my goals very clear. The real truth is that I cannot afford to be lazy or lackadaisical in my endeavors.

1. I am a self-employed single parent of an amazing, high school senior who has one foot on a college campus and the other firmly planted in my kitchen annihilating the refrigerator. If I don’t work—J don’t eat and hunger turns my usually happy-go-lucky son into Grumpy Cat. Hard work, discipline and sacrifice are necessary requirements of parenthood, whether or not I’m off chasing butterflies or punching a time-clock.  #iloveJ

2. I want what I want something terrible and when you want something as much as I want this then I must work until I attain it. I am anticipating that more work will be required to maintain it. I am prepared for the work of the next level as well. In all honesty, I’ve been a hard worker since childhood, it’s all I know.

3. I have also had a whole lot of fun—excessive, decadent and luxuriously self-indulgent amounts of fun this woman has had. Fun that yielded nothing at all except for the memories which still induce a ready smile to my heart and upon my lips. My toes have been cooled by waters from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans and far beyond the boundaries of this great country we live in. If all that fun didn’t kill me or wear me down; I’m thinking a little hard work won’t either. Hard work funds fun.

4. Writing is fun for me. It’s therapeutic. It’s relaxing. Writing is my life. Writing is how I connect to God. Unfortunately it’s like sentencing yourself to solitary confinement, but at least I own the key. Now that publishing and marketing stuff—that’s what you call work, but it comes with the territory. I want to make the New York Times and USA Today Best Seller lists. I want you to think of me when you get ready to curl up with a good book, to entertain you with film adaptations, plays and to write content that you can relate to. I want the top which means that I want to work. And some of that work includes meeting you, but that’s fun!

5. When “I” get tired—I rest. When “I” need a vacation—I go. When “I” need to work hard—I roll up my sleeves and get the job done. When “you” need or miss me—call me and tell me what time to be there. And when you feel like I’m working too hard, please free to pick up a couple of these books and help me sell them. It takes a village to raise a best-selling author.

Laziness is a luxurious mindset that I can no longer afford to own. – Nakia R. Laushaul

www.nakiarlaushaul.com