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What’s the connection between ‘laziness’ and ‘sadness’? How will such a mentality affect your spirituality!
In Catholic doctrine, laziness is listed as one of the seven deadly sins. It is one of the most difficult crimes to clearly define because it involves many different concepts, including psychological, spiritual, pathological and conditional states. One definition of laziness is a habitual lack of effort, or simply laziness. Throughout history, views on the virtue of work have implied that inactivity invites sin. As someone famously said, "Because Satan can always find some trouble for idle hands to do."
The Latin word for laziness, "acedia," translated into Medieval English as "acciditties," literally means "without care."
The spiritual connotation of laziness originally referred to an influence on women and religious people that made them indifferent to their duties to God. On a psychological level, laziness has many characteristics, the most important of which is the absence of emotion, which leads to boredom, vicious cycles, apathy, and a passive and sluggish state of mind. Physiologically, laziness manifests itself as a cessation of movement, indifference to work, and appears in the form of laziness, idleness, and boredom. Some critics have suggested that the most accurate translation of laziness is “self-pity,” because this captures both the melancholy of the state and the egocentric nature of the condition.
Catholic View
In the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas defined laziness as "sorrow for spiritual goodness" and "a frivolity of mind which renders inaction the cause of good deeds to be neglected... If this condition oppresses a person too much, it turns him completely away from good deeds, and its effect is evil. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, laziness even reaches the point of refusing to receive happiness from God and harboring an aversion to goodness. Laziness is the neglect of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, piety, fortitude, and the fear of the Lord), which slows down spiritual progress, neglects various charitable obligations toward neighbors, and loses the fear of God. .
Unlike the other deadly sins, laziness is a sin of omission, manifesting itself as a lack of desire and/or action.
Laziness can stem from any of the other seven deadly sins. For example, neglecting one's responsibilities to one's father because of anger. Henry Edward Manning believed that while the state and habit of laziness is a mortal sin, the habit of the soul tending toward laziness is not itself fatal except under certain circumstances. The nature of laziness as a mortal sin is explored in the work of Italian poet Dante Alighieri, who encounters lazy people in Purgatory and is explained by his mentor Virgil that laziness can be seen as a manifestation of love. The result of insufficiency.
The Orthodox perspective
In the biblical book of Philokalia, the word "dejection" is used instead of laziness, because a person who falls into depression will lose interest in life.
Other Views
Laziness is also defined as the failure to complete what should be done, however the ancient understanding of this sin was that such laziness or lack of work was simply a sign of apathy or indifference. At the same time, this indifference can be seen as a lack of love. Emotionally and cognitively, the evil of laziness manifests itself as a lack of feeling for the world, others, and oneself. Laziness first creates isolation from the world and then isolation from oneself.
Of the various states of the soul, laziness not only destroys the survival of the body by neglecting its daily provision, but also dulls the mind and prevents it from paying attention to important matters. Thus, laziness hinders one's progress in a righteous cause and becomes a path to corruption.
According to Peter Binsfield's classification of demons, Belphegor is the first demon of the sin of laziness.
Psychologist Dr. William Backus pointed out the similarities between laziness and depression. "Depression involves an aversion to effort, and the moral danger of laziness lies in this characteristic. The effort required to make moral and spiritual decisions seems particularly unwelcome and difficult. As a result, the lazy person drifts in sinful habits, This view is further supported by those who believe that they have no willpower and who seek only biological and environmental causes and medical solutions.”
The connection between laziness and sadness seems impossible to ignore. How does this mentality affect your spirituality and the quality of your life?
