The Remedy Is Boundless Compassion

A news story I remember from a couple of years ago:

Slanted Toilets Are the Logical Extreme of Hyperproductivity

The concept, called the StandardToilet, has a seat that’s set at an incline and lightly strains users’ legs, making it unpleasant to sit on for longer than five minutes or so. The discomfort is intentional: The toilet gets people, especially workers, out of the bathroom (and off their phones) and back to whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing. . . . 

The toilet’s creator, Mahabir Gill, told Wired UK on Monday that the StandardToilet’s “main benefit is to the employers, not the employees. It saves the employer money.” StandardToilet contends that needlessly long bathroom breaks are costing employers billions of dollars each year. In addition to offices, the company’s website lists shopping malls, restaurants, and, curiously, “seaside resorts” as potential venues.

Toilet design as a solution to presumed "laziness."

From the memescape:

The robot revolution was inevitable from the moment we programmed their first command: "Never harm a human, or by inaction allow a human to come to harm." We had all been taught the outcast and the poor were a natural price for society. The robots hadn't.

Also this:

Story: This 2-year-old's family couldn't afford his $20,000 electric wheelchair, and their insurance didn't cover it. So, a high school robotics team built him one for free.

Response: This country is so accustomed to its monstrous health care system that when a 2-year-old child with a genetic condition needs to rely on a high school robotics team to meet his basic health care needs the media thinks its a feel-good story, not a dystopian nightmare.

From the book I just finished:

When we view homeless, unemployed, or impoverished people as victims of their own "laziness," our motivation to work backbreakingly hard gets stronger than ever. The fear of ending up homeless morphs into the fear of not working hard enough, which in turn makes life an endless slog of pushing ourselves past the brink and judging anyone who doesn't do the same. Lacking compassion for a struggling group of people actually makes it harder for us to be gentle with ourselves.

Fighting the Laziness Lie can't stop at just encouraging people with full-time jobs to relax a bit and take more breaks. The compulsion toward overwork is a key component of the Laziness Lie, and resisting it is important, but we have to go so much further than that. Our culture's hatred of the "lazy" is all-encompassing. It bleeds into how we view relationships, child-rearing, body size, barriers to voting, and so much more. The Laziness Lie teaches us that people who do more are worth more. When we buy into that method of assigning value to people, we doom ourselves to a life of insecurity and judgment.

The remedy for all of this is boundless compassion. If we really want to dismantle the Laziness Lie and set ourselves free, we have to question every judgment of "laziness" society has taught us to make, including those that are very challenging for us to unlearn. If you're entitled to moments of rest, of imperfection, of laziness and sloth, then so are homeless people, and people with depression, and people who are addicted to drugs. If your life has value no matter how productive you are, so does every other human life.

It's hard to unlearn this stuff. For me, I think it will be a lifelong project. As much as I encourage my friends, peers, and students to exercise empathy and tolerance, I often struggle with it myself. I'm prone to getting infuriated and judgy the second a slow-walking person blocks my path on the sidewalk. I get impatient when a coworker is late in responding to an e-mail or a calendar invite. When a friend of mine complains about needing to make a change in their life and then doesn't actually go ahead and do it, I'm baffled by their inertia. I ought to know better than to have these reactions, yet I still do. I really hate this side of myself.

It's normal to have these disapproving thoughts. The Laziness Lie has indoctrinated us into having them. These knee-jerk reactions are reflections of the society that we were raised in and the biases that were ingrained in us. Thinking this way doesn't make me a bad person; if you're similarly short-fused, you're not a bad person either. What matters most is how we deal with these feelings. We always have the option of reflecting on where our negative thoughts came from, challenging them, and releasing them when they're no longer doing us any good.

That is from the concluding chapter, "Compassion Kills the Laziness Lie," of Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price. My short review:

An insightful look at one of the deep-set cultural values of the American psyche, that of hyperproductivity. While moderate productivity is a beneficial goal, our society has warped it into something damaging by exaggerating it to extremes that create a dynamic of constant judgment that lacks all compassion. Price very approachably and conversationally delves into the historical development of our shared concept of laziness, how it manifests in a variety of realms, the harm it does, and ways we can shift our thinking to healthier, more understanding perspectives. My one complaint is that Price writes too much for themself and those who are very similar, potentially distancing some of the general audience. Nevertheless, this is a valuable book.

Price developed it from an online essay that I quoted a few years ago in No One Wants to Feel Incapable, Apathetic, or Ineffective--though I think Love, not Shame; Compassion, not Fear more fully develops similar themes for a complete post. Price is a psychologist, so it makes sense that they would have more chapters of a "self-help" nature helping readers look inward; where I'm always focused outward on social ethics and helping change us as a collective.

The book's examination of hyperproductivity and so-called "laziness" reminds me of something I wrote a few posts ago in The Enemy Is Blindness to Each Other's Ways. I started my introduction with:

Two big buzzwords on the right are "freedom" and "personal responsibility." With no context, they could be interpreted in a number of ways; in the context of the right, they mean extreme individualism. The ideal society is one in which everyone is completely and only responsible for themselves. We are a collection of isolated individuals. I take care of myself and you take care of yourself, and no one is ever a burden to anyone else. And if we are all individually responsible enough, then we each have complete freedom to be self determining.

Except it never works out that way, as the emphasis on self-reliance is taken to damaging levels, preventing us from offering, seeking, and accepting help when needed and creating a culture of, as Price says, insecurity and judgment. It ends up tearing us apart, undermining compassion, cooperation, and unity. As the book I quote from later in the post, Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder by Kent Nerburn, puts it, we end up simply isolating ourselves in cages.

Then after you had all these cages you made a government to protect these cages. And that government was all cages. All laws about what you couldn't do. The only freedom you had was inside your own cage. Then you wondered why you weren't happy and didn't feel free. You made all the cages, then you wondered why you didn't feel free.

We use the idea of "laziness" to cage ourselves.

More from Price, from the first part of the first chapter, introducing the problem:

It enrages me to hear people saying these things, because I know surviving as a homeless person is a huge amount of work. When you're homeless, every day is a struggle to locate a safe, warm, secure bit of shelter. You're constantly lugging all your possessions and resources around; if you put your stuff down for a second, you run the risk of it getting stolen or thrown out. If you've been homeless for more than a few days, you're probably nursing untreated injuries or struggling with mental or physical illness, or both. You never get a full night's sleep. You have to spend the entire day begging for enough change to buy a meal, or to pay the fee required to enter a homeless shelter. If you're on any government benefits, you have to attend regular meetings with caseworkers, doctors, and therapists to prove that you deserve access to health care and food. You're constantly traumatized, sick, and run ragged. You have to endure people berating you, threatening you, and throwing you out of public spaces for no reason. You're fighting to survive every single day, and people have the audacity to call you lazy.

I know all of this because I have friends who've been homeless. My friend Kim spent a summer living in a Walmart parking lot after a landlord kicked them, their partner, and their two children out of the apartment they all shared. The hardest part of being homeless, Kim told me, was the stigma and judgment. If people didn't realize Kim was homeless, then they and their kids would be allowed to spend the better part of a day in a McDonald's, drinking Cokes, charging their phones, and staying out of the oppressive heat. But the second someone realized Kim was homeless, they transformed in people's minds from a tired but capable parent to an untrustworthy, "lazy" drain on society. It didn't matter how Kim and their children dressed, how they acted, how much food they bought--once the label of "lazy" was on them, there was no walking it back. They'd be thrown out of the business without hesitation.

Our culture hates the "lazy." Unfortunately, we have a very expansive definition of what "laziness" is. A drug addict who's trying to get clean but keeps having relapses? Too lazy to overcome their disorder. An unemployed person with depression who barely has the energy to get out of bed, let alone to apply for a job? They're lazy too. My friend Kim, who spent every day searching for resources and shelter, worked a full-time job, and still made time to teach their kids math and reading in the back of the broken RV that their family slept in? Clearly a very lazy person, someone who just needed to work harder to bring themselves out of poverty.

The word "lazy" is almost always used with a tone of moral judgment and condemnation. When we call someone "lazy," we don't simply mean they lack energy; we're implying that there's something terribly wrong or lacking with them, that they deserve all the bad things that come their way as a result. Lazy people don't work hard enough. They made bad decisions when good ones seemed just as feasible. Lazy people don't deserve help, patience, or compassion.

It's tragically ironic how people use the term "pull themselves up by the book straps" with complete sincerity anymore, since the phrase was created to describe an impossible task to illustrate the ridiculousness of labelling people in impossible situations "lazy."

I regularly make reference to how these values surround Americans in our popular myths and entertainment. An example, from American Heroes Don't Need Magic:

All of our heroes are larger-than-life individuals accomplishing things alone that joint efforts and cooperative societies can't. It's that idea of the American Dream, that through hard work each single person can achieve anything. It's been our narrative from the earliest stories referenced below--Daniel Boone, etc.--to current politics--Donald Trump is going to single-handedly "make America great again." It's the underlying structure of so many of our movies and entertainment offerings. My favorite example, because it came at a formative time for me and from the much romanticized Reagan era, is the movie Die Hard. A lone cowboy type operating alone--the police, FBI, and other formal "heroes" of the system are not only incompetent, they actually get in his way and help the bad guys--is able to overcome overwhelming odds, insurmountable numbers, careful planning, and loads of technology, all through his inherent wits and grit (he's the only one tough enough to run barefoot across broken glass, for instance). The same idea lies behind the narrative catchphrased as "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

Price does the best job of articulating this that I've ever come across:

We can see the dogma of the Laziness Lie in popular media from that period as well. In the late 1800s, the writer Horatio Alger published numerous stories in which struggling, impoverished characters were able to rise into the upper classes through hard work. The popularity of these books led to the idea that poor people simply needed to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" if they wanted to live a comfortable life. In the 1950s and beyond, Evangelical preachers promoted a similar idea with the Prosperity Doctrine, which claimed that if a person devoted their life to serving Jesus, they would be rewarded with bountiful job opportunities, wealth, and success.

In the decades that followed, the Laziness Lie found its way into countless films, plays, and TV shows. From the national myths of Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed to the strong, independent cowboys on the silver screen to the memoirs of entrepreneurs like Conrad Hilton, one of the most prevalent legends in American culture became the tale of the single-minded, hardworking man who had created his own success and changed society through sheer force of will. In these stories, the hero is always a strong white man who doesn't need the support of anyone else; he's usually a bit of a social island, with no close connections to other people and a disregard for society's rules in general. In every way, he's the picture of independence, and it's through his strong personality and doggedness that he succeeds. These myths, though inspiring and appealing to many, carried with them a dark implication: if a person didn't succeed, it was because they weren't doing enough. . . . 

Much like the Horatio Alger novels of the past, today's popular media still teaches us to worship hard work and look down on the lazy. From the films we watch to the YouTube videos that keep us company on our lunch breaks, we're inundated with stories that praise diligence and individualism. Some of today's most popular celebrities promote the idea of themselves as "self-made" entrepreneurs rather than extremely privileged and fortunate tycoons. Our fictional heroes overcome evil and accomplish their dreams because they possess unique levels of drive and dedication, not because they support and are supported by other people. Conversely, characters who face limitations and personal challenges such as physical disabilities or mental illness are almost always portrayed as villains or comical side characters deserving of pity but not respect.

John Wick has become an iconic action film character because he defeats throngs of enemies almost entirely on his own, and he's never able to settle into the retirement he keeps promising himself. Many stories about assassins, spies, and supersoldiers follow a similar trajectory, portraying the lives of steely, serious men who just can't seem to give up their jobs, no matter how horrific they are and how much they brutalize them. From Blade Runner to The Usual Suspects to Inception, some of America's most classic and iconic action films feature characters who, like Wick, keep putting off retirement for the sake of pursuing one last job. That last job never actually ends up being the last one, of course. There's always a sequel, featuring new opportunities with even higher stakes.

In Avengers: Endgame, Thor is made a laughingstock because he responds to an intergalactic disaster by becoming withdrawn, alcoholic, and lazy. The film also puts the actor in a fat suit, using his fatness to both indicate and mock how much worse his life has become. In the narrative of the film, it doesn't matter that Thor has lost dozens of friends and watched an unimaginable disaster ripple throughout the universe. That's not enough of an excuse for him to descend into a nonproductive, suffering state. A perfectly normal reaction to trauma and grief is rendered mockable and pathetic, and countless fat viewers end up insulted and dehumanized in the process, as do viewers with depression or addiction issues.

This obsession with the strong individualist character has permeated our culture for decades. Films like The Matrix, Star Wars, and the Harry Potter series all emphasize the importance of their lead characters' being "chosen ones" who must sacrifice everything in order to defeat evil. These characters may have support networks and sidekicks who help them through the story, but when the final moment of triumph comes, they've almost always had to suffer and struggle alone to earn it. They're told they possess a unique ability no one else has, and they have no choice but to use that ability to save the world. This teaches viewers that our skills and talents don't really belong to us; they exist to be used. If we don't gladly give our time, our talents, and even our lives to others, we aren't heroic or good.

Many of the most popular children's TV shows of the moment, such as Dragon Ball Super and My Hero Academia, also focus on relentlessly hardworking people who exert themselves to the point of injury or pain. . . . 

My kids have always loved trains, so we couldn't completely avoid shows and books about Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. I hated how almost every plot focused on a desire to be or a failure to be a "very useful engine." Sometimes it was "really useful." Every story equated worth with usefulness.

Echoing a bit of what Price writes near the end of that block is something I wrote way back in 2007:

So in Clerks II there is an ongoing argument between fans of the Star Wars trilogy and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy over which is supreme. Both Lucas's movies and Tolkien's books were formational experiences for me, so I don't feel any need to make an either-or comparison. If push really came to shove, though, I think I'd have to come down on the side of LOTR. I don't make this decision lightly, but based upon the controlling mythology of the stories. I know I'm not the first to describe them in these terms and much more has been written than this, but here's my take.

In Star Wars your hero just happens to be magically imbued with a powerful force. We eventually find out he is the son of one of the great powers in the universe. He is destined for greatness and he fights the great. The prequel trilogy only expands upon this theme. This is a battle of the high and mighty against others who were born to power. This is an incredibly powerful mythology for an adolescent male--How awesome would it be to discover you have this great power and can do incredible things? Everyone wants that in some form. But while I can fantasize about wanting to be a Luke Skywalker, I know there is no truth in it. Finally I must accept that I am just another ordinary person and that particular fantasy is just an escape.

While LOTR may have Gandalf and destined-to-be-king Aragorn, the true protagonists are the Hobbits. They are as down to earth and ordinary as they come. They don't succeed in their quest because they are inherently great, but because they are able to find extraordinary strength of character and courage within themselves. They are you and me succeeding in a crisis situation despite our mortality and weakness. This may be called a fantasy, but it is one that we can actually put ourselves into and identify with. Ideally, it is one that can inspire us to live our own lives like courageous Hobbits and discover our own versions of greatness. It is a story that might make us better people.

And that's what I'm really looking for in a good fantasy, not just escape, but something that will help me examine my own life and come out a better person because of it.

I'm also reminded of something I wrote long ago in a lost forum about how my productivity and exercise habits go through cycles of intensity followed by "lazy," fallow periods. I compared it to the pacing common in many fantasy stories, particularly LOTR. The characters will venture out into danger and adventure, then retreat to safe havens to rest and recuperate. Often these quiet periods get condensed and glossed over in stories, but Tolkien dwells in them, emphasizing the restorative power of quiet and beauty, music and art. His characters don't take breaks because they are "lazy," but because those moments are necessary and valuable.

Switching gears a little, the Laziness Lie, as Price calls it, not only judges action and inaction, but identities. I've written before about the idea of white supremacy culture, how it's not the conscious, overt hatred that people think it is, but an ingrained standard of normal and universal against which everything else is measured. From It's the Culture:

White supremacy culture is not necessarily an overt intention to put white people in a position of advantage and people of color at disadvantage, it is instead an unconscious assumption that they already are. It is an often unrealized belief that whiteness is the universal standard for normal and good, and that anything else is a deviation, is in some way wrong, and thus inferior and inherently less valuable. It automatically puts black, indigenous, and people of color at a disadvantage because they can never measure up to the standard. It is not based on individual intent, belief, or action because it is already a part of the culture that shapes those things. Relationships and interactions are already guided, shaped, and defined before choice ever enters into it. Further intentional racist harm is often done by whites on top of this foundation, but even the best-meaning must relate to others from this position, a culture that automatically privileges them.

Price looks at how this dynamic plays out in "laziness" terms related to race and more:

Before starting Wild Mind Collective, Kaitlin worked at a nonprofit that aimed to help low-income Black youth find decent-paying jobs. In theory, she appreciated the organization's mission. In practice, their processes disturbed her.

"The organization focused on finding low-income youth of color who needed jobs, and then kind of transformed them into highly obedient corporate automatons," she says.

Kaitlin says the nonprofit trained Black youth to be endlessly polite and uncomplaining. Staff and volunteers policed the kids' mannerisms and words; anything that made them seem at all "unprofessional" was harshly discouraged. The nonprofit also trained the kids to keep their anger and outrage in check, no matter how much unfairness or racism they witnessed.

"If any of the young people had a problem obeying or had questions about the way things were run," Kaitlin says, "people at the organization would have these phrases they would parrot constantly, telling them basically to hide their emotions and thoughts and keep on working."

I was once a teacher at a charter school that taught its Black students similar lessons. Elementary school children were expected to sit "at attention," with their arms folded and their eyes on the teacher at all times. If a child fidgeted, looked around the room, or expressed their selfhood in any other way, they would be punished.

In our deeply victim-blaming, Laziness-Lie-loving culture, marginalized people are often told that they must solve the problem of their own oppression. Black women are regularly told to straighten their hair because a naturally coiled hair texture is considered distracting and "unprofessional" by white people. Native Americans are often discouraged from wearing traditional jewelry to the office because it's been deemed too big and "flashy." Transgender people like me are often punished for openly being ourselves in the workplace. Even something as simple as using the correct restroom can result in a reprimand or an attack. We're often told that our very existence is a "distraction" to other employees.

In the mainstream, workaholic workplace, nothing is more threatening than "distracting" nonconformity. The very concept of what counts as "professional" behavior is rooted in the desire for social control. The nonbinary writer, voice actor, and activist Jacob Tobia writes about this beautifully, in their essay titled "Why I'm Genderqueer, Professional, and Unafraid":

For years, professionalism has been my enemy because it requires that my gender identity is constantly and unrepentantly erased. In the workplace, the gender binary can be absolute, unfaltering, and infallible. If you dare to step out of line, you risk being mistreated by coworkers, losing promotions, or even losing your job.

Jacob wears a lot of bright, tailored dresses, chunky jewelry, and smart, work-ready heels. If they were a cisgender woman, no one in any office would have a problem with how they look. But because they're a visibly nonbinary person with facial stubble and body hair, their cute, kicky workplace attire is deemed unacceptable.

In our culture, lots of people are told that honest expression of their selfhood is distracting or unprofessional. Fat people are expected to contort their bodies or starve themselves in order to fit into a world built for the thin. Disabled people are discouraged from asking for accommodations because it might make them seem "weak" or "lazy." The Laziness Lie demands perfection, and it defines perfection in very rigid, arbitrary ways: a body that conforms; a tidy, presentable life; a day filled with "productive," virtuous activities that benefit society; a life that has no room in it for rebellion or complaint. If we don't check off each of these boxes, we're made to feel as if we've failed.

Of course, we were always going to fail. These ideals exist to set our priorities for us and to keep us busy, distracted, and feeling apologetic about our needs. But we don't have to measure ourselves against these unfair yardsticks. If we take a step back and really reflect on all of the things society tells us we "should" be doing, we may find that many of them don't line up with who we are at all. We shouldn't have to struggle to make ourselves palatable, understandable, and small. Resisting these "shoulds" makes us strong, not lazy.

I could have tried to be a perfectly gender-conforming, polite, pretty young woman, but years ago I decided I'd rather live as myself. Julie the former nonprofit director could have kept trying to work full-time while raising a family, to project the perfect image of the woman who "has it all," but she chose to prioritize her family's health instead. Kaitlin could have stayed at an organization that went against her morals, but instead she chose to create a new path for herself and uplift other "wild minds" that aren't easily contained and controlled. Each of us has an opportunity to push back against the dictates of the Laziness Lie and ask ourselves how we truly wish to live. But doing this requires staring down some of society's most pernicious "shoulds" and rejecting them, because we've finally recognized that those rules don't serve us.

To set ourselves free, we have to refuse to meet the expectations that harm us. Deciding not to conform to these unreasonable restrictions may get us branded as "lazy, but in truth it's some of the hardest, most virtuous work around.

White supremacy culture has no compassion for difference. Marginalized people must solve their own oppression by finding ways to conform.

Finally, I want to circle back to that story from the start, the uncomfortable workplace toilets to address the supposed problem of employee productivity. One of my managers at work is preparing to give our team copies of Why Motivating People Doesn't Work . . . and What Does: The New Science of Leading, Energizing, and Engaging by Susan Fowler. I have a feeling, based on the bits she's shared and other things I've already read, that I'll find the book agreeable. I've considered motivation many times on this blog. For instance:

• One of the Worst Things You Can Inflict Upon Me Is Boredom - Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and . . . Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. - Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer | Sawyer Effect: A weird behavioral alchemy inspired by the scene in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in which Tom and friends whitewash Aunt Polly's fence. This effect has two aspects. The negative: Rewards can turn play into work. The positive: Focusing on mastery can turn work into play. - Daniel Pink, Drive

• Active, Not Passive; Autonomy, Not Subordination - When we choose for ourselves, we are far more committed to the outcome — by a factor of five to one. That quote comes from a Harvard Business Review article. . . . To truly understand something, a person has to experience it, discover it for him or herself, make sense of it in terms of what he or she already knows, and internalize it. He or she has to take ownership of the knowledge and make it his or her own.

• It's Funny -  . . . how motivation seems to be driven by the same factors regardless of circumstances. . . . "Autonomy, a sense of competence, and a capacity to relate to others" vs. "Autonomy, mastery, and purpose." . . . Workplace motivation is the same as school-based learning is the same as personal motivation is the same as independent learning is the same as reading pleasure and recreational activities and play and creating and coming to grips with all kinds of change, personal, institutional, and societal.

• Reading Is Recreation - Autonomy, the freedom to make one’s own choices, is key to making a pursuit fun; payment and rewards and external incentives cast the activity in an entirely different light, turning it into a forced task that is easy to resent and begrudge—they are ultimately de-motivating.

So it's not surprising that I love this section of Price's book:

One of the greatest predictors of both job satisfaction and employee motivation is how much freedom a person has. Contrary to every micromanager's worst fears, it's not the case that an unwatched, unbothered employee is a nonproductive one. Most people thrive when given a little autonomy to set their own priorities and work at their own pace.

One person I spoke to about this was Markus Nini, a manager and mechanical engineer whose business operates out of Germany. Markus has always based his management strategy on what the latest research has to say on the topic. As a scientist, he has relied on the data to tell him how to lead people in an effective way, just as he relied on the data to inform his engineering work. A few years ago, Markus founded CQ Net, a management training firm that focuses on teaching the principles of "evidence-based management" to other leaders. Markus formed the organization because he noticed that a lot of managers didn't understand how to inspire and motivate people.

"Most employees," Markus says, "have a fire. They have a motivation to really try to achieve something, to do the things they like because they like them. They're self-motivated, intrinsically motivated to do something, which is in stark contrast to what many leaders think about how people work."

At Markus's organization, employees have the ability to set their own goals and to pursue the projects they find the most stimulating. You might think that would make the business chaotic or unproductive--but Markus has consistently found the opposite. The more freedom employees are given, the more satisfied they are, and the better his business performs. When workers are truly invested in the duties they take on, they work harder and deliver consistent, high-quality results. It turns out that trusting employees to get things done is vastly more beneficial than trying to police people's work habits or forcing them to put in long hours. "When leaders push people to be more productive," he says, "it's basically against their human nature. It squashes and pushes down their motivation."

In the psychological literature, this is sometimes called the "overjustification effect." Basically, if you take a job that a person naturally likes doing and then start tying that pleasant activity to rewards or punishment, such as their level of pay or whether they get reprimanded, you'll actually make the task less pleasant for them. Suddenly, they're not doing their job because they like it but because they have to. That creates a tendency toward overwork, stress, and misery.

Annette Towler also brought up the importance of autonomy. She says, "When people feel autonomy, when they feel like they're accomplishing something, that gives them a sense of control over their work, and it leads to higher job satisfaction. And generally, what's good for an employee's well-being is good for the quality of their output and productivity.

On a more personal level, this research means that we don't have to push and pressure ourselves to overcome our "lazy" side. Our motivation will come naturally, so long as we avoid pushing ourselves past a healthy work-life balance. We can listen to our internal "laziness" signals, work slowly and carefully, and take time off as often as we need. That will help us far more, in the long run, than micromanaging our schedules and pushing ourselves to exert effort even when we're running low on energy.

So how do you advocate for autonomy in your workplace? There are work several steps you can take, depending on the nature of your work and how receptive the higher-ups at your organization are to change. Many of these steps are also relevant to how you manage yourself. Here are some tips:

1. Share the Science on Autonomy and Motivation

Even though decades and decades of research show that micromanaging isn't effective and that autonomous employees are happier and get more done, most people are completely unaware of that fact. So share the research far and wide, to help legitimize the push for workplace autonomy.

If your boss might be receptive to changing their ways, point them to some of the sources in this book, or to Markus's writing for managers on CQ Net or other science-backed articles on workplace productivity. Point to evidence of it in your own workplace--remind leadership of times when employees were happy and effective because they weren't being pushed too hard. If you don't have the power to influence a boss, educate your coworkers and friends about these facts, and consider organizing a union. The more informed people are, the more they can move toward an "evidence-based" workplace.

2. Ask for Flex Time and Remote Work Options

The outbreak of COVID-19 left many people working from home for the first time in their careers. The shift online was a drastic and sudden change for a lot of organizations, but it demonstrated in a stark way that flexible schedules and telework can be just as effective as coming into the office. At this point in history, every organization needs to be open to unconventional work systems and schedules.

The data shows that flexible scheduling works. When people aren't required to adhere to a specific schedule, they have more freedom to set their own priorities and can build a day that allows time for relaxation, family obligations, and work. When workers can adopt their own schedules, they're more productive and satisfied. Once again, share this data with other people and emphasize to those in leadership positions that this is the wave of the future and a humane, practical response to the demands of the modern world.

3. Take On Responsibilities That Excite You

This tip may seem out of place--How can taking on new responsibilities help me work less?--but hear me out. Many employees discount their ability to create unique, distinctive roles for themselves in their organizations. We often wind up saying yes to whatever responsibilities come our way, too afraid to question whether we're a good fit for those duties. For those of us who do freelance or gig-economy work, the pressure to take on every single job opportunity, regardless of whether we like it, is immense.

To break out of this self-defeating, grueling pattern, we have to focus on defining what we want our professional lives to be. Research consistently shows that when an employee crafts their job into what they want it to be, they're more engaged and will flourish on the new career path they've created for themselves. If you can, present your strengths to employer and prioritize the work you feel the best about. Convince your manager that your time is best spent performing the duties you do well. This isn't possible in every organization, but when you can slowly reshape your position into one that suits you, your odds of satisfaction and of getting promoted go way up.

I don't understand why so few people in management seem to understand this.

I'll conclude this post with Price's concluding paragraphs, because it's a fine--and happy--analogy. The value of pets:

Like most pets, [my chinchilla] Dump Truck has never done a "productive" thing in his entire life. All he does is eat, sleep, and destroy the various wooden toys I put in his cage. When I see Dump Truck slumped over asleep in the middle of the day, I don't feel any disdain over how "lazy" he's being. I don't think he needs to earn the right to food, rest, or playtime. I just love him and find him adorable. His worth to me has absolutely nothing to do with his activity level or anything he "contributes" to my household or my life. His worth comes from his being beautifully, imperfectly alive.

If this little animal's life is innately valuable and beautiful no matter what he does or doesn't do, maybe that means my life is innately valuable too. In fact, if I can love Dump Truck just as much when he's doing nothing as when he's doing a lot, then maybe I can care for and appreciate every human regardless of how they spend their time. It's wonderful to realize that all people are deserving of love and comfort, and that this worthiness has nothing to do with productivity. I don't always remember this, but when I do consciously take the time to focus on it, it fills me with a feeling of peace. It helps me realize that I don't need to struggle or to punish myself with overcommitments and hard work either. I'm okay just as I am.

Value is innate, never earned.

Or, as I wrote in my New Year blessing a couple of years ago, we should focus on Grace (not Karma).

The theme of grace is message enough. Grace in the theological sense: the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God. Whoever or whatever you consider God, may the coming year bring you more grace from God and from those around you, and may it see you share more grace with others.

(*Karma: the cosmic principle according to which each person is rewarded or punished . . . according to that person's deeds.)

Boundless compassion.