Why is it that therapists, and seemingly Los Angeles society, would rather you call yourself depressed rather than lazy? How did depressed get elevated to noble, while lazy has been relegated to the dustbins along with all the other “negative” words we aren’t supposed to use to describe our behavior—even when they are accurate?

As usual, I have a theory.

If you are depressed, there is a pill. There is therapy. There is a plan. There is a way to “fix” you, even if practitioners avoid the term.

There is no pill for lazy. There is no self-help section for lazy (authors need to get writing because apparently this is still a largely untapped niche market). Personally, I’d probably buy a book that had the title “So, You’re Lazy—If You Give a Shit, Here Are Some Ideas To Get You Motivated”.

I’m reading a book right now, and it has some interesting ideas (recommended by Anna, props to Anna!). But I’ve hit a section that mentions that depressed people tend to put clutter on the floor (or “low”). Well, that may be true, but so do short people. If you combine short and lazy, you will tend to find a whole lot of stuff on the floor.

The reality is, at the end of a day (and sometimes in the middle of it), I am lazy. Once work is taken care of, the personal priorities get a bit lax. Fairly often, I’d much rather kick back and watch a movie over moving off my rapidly expanding ass to do something else productive. Tell someone that you are lazy, and the response tends to be “oh, don’t say that”. Why not? It’s not a tragic, permanent character flaw. I haven’t just admitted to suicidal tendencies. For the most part, it is the Yang to my Puritan-Work-Ethic-Ying. If I say that I’m lazy, it isn’t a sign of a deflating self-esteem or inflating psychosis. It’s just lazy.

Kate, wondering if there is such a thing as a cynical, self-help book