Laziness Does Not Exist

I’ve been a psychology professor since 2012. In the past six years, I’ve witnessed students of all ages procrastinate on papers, skip presentation days, miss assignments, and let due dates fly by. I’ve seen promising prospective grad students fail to get applications in on time. I’ve watched PhD candidates take months or years to revise a single dissertation draft. I once had a student enroll in the same class two semesters in a row, never turning in anything either time.

I don’t believe laziness was ever at fault.

Ever.

I don’t believe that laziness exists.

Behavior and Context

As a social psychologist, I study how situational and contextual factors drive human behavior. When seeking to understand someone’s actions, looking at social norms and their context is usually more revealing than personality, intelligence, or other individual traits.

So when I see a student struggling to meet deadlines, I ask:

• What are the situational factors holding them back?
• What needs are not being met?
• What barriers to action am I not seeing?

There are always barriers. Recognizing them is often the first step to breaking so-called “lazy” behavior patterns.

Curiosity Over Judgment

It’s essential to respond to ineffective behavior with curiosity rather than judgment. I learned this from my friend, writer, and activist Kimberly Longhofer (published under Mik Everett).

Kim is passionate about the acceptance and accommodation of disabled and homeless individuals. Their work is some of the most bias-busting writing I’ve encountered.

Kim taught me that judging a homeless person for wanting alcohol or cigarettes is folly. When nights are cold, the world is unfriendly, and chronic conditions go untreated, needing a drink or a cigarette makes sense. Alcohol might help them warm up. Cigarettes might dull hunger pangs. If they have an addiction, sometimes they need to survive.

If a person’s behavior doesn’t make sense to you, it’s because you’re missing part of their context.

Many people moralize the decisions of the poor, as if homelessness is their fault. But when you don’t fully understand a person’s daily struggles.

It’s easy to impose rigid, unrealistic expectations.

The Truth About Procrastination

People love to blame procrastinators. Even procrastinators blame themselves. But procrastination is not laziness.

For decades, psychological research has shown that procrastination stems from:

1. Anxiety about not being “good enough.”
2. Confusion about how to begin.

Procrastination is more likely when the task is meaningful and the individual cares about doing it well. When paralyzed by fear of failure or uncertainty, it’s difficult to start.

Willpower alone doesn’t fix this. The more a person wants to complete the task, the harder it may become.

Overcoming Barriers to Action

Instead of blaming “laziness,” we need to address the root cause:

• If anxiety is the problem, stepping away for relaxation may help.
• If executive functioning challenges are the issue, breaking the task into smaller steps can make a difference.

I completed my dissertation (from proposal to defense) in just over a year because I:

1. Compiled research on my topic.
2. Outlined the paper.
3. Scheduled regular writing periods.
4. Chipped away at the work in structured, manageable sections.

For me, this process was natural due to my analytical, autistic, hyper-focused brain. However, for most people, external structure is necessary. Writing groups, deadlines, to-do lists, calendars, or a syllabus.

Needing these supports doesn’t make someone lazy. It just means they have different needs.

Understanding Student Struggles

I had a student who often skipped class. Sometimes, I’d see her lingering near the building, tired, and hesitant. When she did attend, she was withdrawn, never speaking in large discussions.

Many of my colleagues would label her as lazy or disengaged. But when our class discussed mental health stigma, she stayed after to talk to me.

She confided that she had a mental illness, was undergoing treatment, and struggled with therapy, medication changes, and side effects. Some days, she physically couldn’t leave her house. She didn’t dare tell her other professors, fearing they’d assume she was making excuses.

I understood. And I was furious that she had to justify her struggles.

She wasn’t lazy. She was balancing school, work, and serious mental health treatment. She was a badass, not a failure.

A Call for Empathy

So-called “lazy” people are often doing the best they can under challenging conditions. Instead of judgment, we should ask:

• What unseen barriers are they facing?
• What supports could help them succeed?
• How can we approach their struggles with curiosity and compassion?

The more we embrace this mindset, the more we help people thrive.