Think you are lazy? You might just be a Lazy Enthusiast!
When I was creating my Medium profile I used the phrase “Lazy Enthusiast(LE)” to describe myself in the bio section. I did not really think about what it’s supposed to mean, but it just felt right.
Over time, I started mentally tagging people I meet as “Lazy Enthusiast(LE)” or “not Lazy Enthusiast”. I could tell a lazy enthusiast when I see one, but didn’t really have a definition or a set of requirements…until now.
Are YOU a Lazy Enthusiast?
To some, the phrase Lazy Enthusiast(LE) might seem a bit paradoxical. I mean, you don’t usually see lazy people being enthusiastic about anything. But there is a survivorship bias at play here. You only know someone is enthusiastic about a topic if he is actually doing something about it, i.e. not being lazy.
If you think you are a Lazy Enthusiast, you will identify with the following things.
- You have a lot of interests. This might not be obvious at first, but it is the primary requirement. (Hint: To always avoid doing anything about your interests, you need to have a lot of them)
- You constantly seek new interests. Novelty is the thing you go after. You also need a constant source of hot new interests. This source could be twitter, hacker news, or a diverse set of friends.
- You don’t really do much about all of these interests. This is probably the most important attribute of being a lazy enthusiast. Whenever you think you might do something about an interest, you quickly move to the next one.
So, what do you think? are you a Lazy enthusiast?
What makes you a Lazy Enthusiast
I think the three attributes above are just the symptoms of some deep aspects of a Lazy Enthusiast’s personality. These aspects are:
1] No passion. — A Lazy Enthusiast in not passionate about anything. For a non LE, it might seem like a lazy enthusiast is actually passionate about a lot of things. But that’s a paradox. If you are passionate about a lot of things, you are not really passionate about anything.
2] A large appetite for information —Lazy Enthusiasts always prefer information over experience. They can consume, rather need to consume a large amount of information. This is of course helped by the social media and internet in today’s age. And when you are constantly finding new interesting things, you will never spend enough time with one niche to actually become passionate about it.
3] No action bias/ Anti action bias — There is no proper opposite of action bias. If you look at all the great men and women, they all had a strong action bias. They preferred to learn by doing. And Lazy Enthusiasts don’t. They prefer to read, watch or listen about the hot new interest but never do anything about it.
Whether you want to proudly wear your Lazy Enthusiast badge or you want to change this aspect of your personality, knowing that you are a Lazy enthusiast is the first step, and I hope this article helped you with that.
