I was hoping to get a column out on my thoughts on Sophia Laukli ending her trail running season, but alas, time has run out. I am hoping to discuss that on the next podcast! Thanks for dealing with me as I negotiate a busy start to the fall. Hopefully, things will improve in Seder-Skier Land.

I’m glad you’re here!

Let’s see if I start typing if it’s possible to come up with something brilliant….

I struggle with laziness.

Most of the time, this is a bad thing. Theologically, this is a bad thing.

• Proverbs 6:6: Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!
• Proverbs 10:4: “Laziness leads to poverty; hard work makes you rich”
• Proverbs 12:11: Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense.
• Proverbs 12:24: “The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor”
• Proverbs 13:4: “The soul of the lazy man desires, and has nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich”
• Proverbs 14:23: “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty”.
• Proverbs 20:4: Sluggards do not plow in season; so at harvest time they look but find nothing.
• Proverbs 21:25-26: “The desire of the sluggard puts him to death, for his hands refuse to work; All day long he is craving, while the righteous gives and does not hold back” 

Proverbs basically warns against becoming two things: an adulterer and a sluggard.

Thus, though the skieologian inside of me is leary making the following claim, I think I’m ready to at least throw it out there.

Sometimes, laziness can be reframed (uggh… I’m cringing a bit using such a new-fangled, new age word) and lead to positive outcomes.

Example: Because I’m too lazy to figure out how to work the TV in our living room, it never gets turned on. This has decreased my awareness of pop culture (I literally have not seen a blockbloster film since like the seventh Star Wars episode…) but increased our quality family time.

Another example: Because I’m too lazy to text people back most of the time, I’m not addicted to my phone. While a few relationships have deteriorated (and I’m not proud of that), I will take not being tied to my phone constantly as a by-product.

Here’s my thesis: Because we naturally slide into the path of least resistance, our environment plays a big role in shaping our habits. As a result, I think it can be beneficial to ‘capitalize’ on our laziness, at least sometimes, by being “lazy.”

Speaking of habits, I was recently reading a great book titled “Habits of the Household” by Justin Whitmel Earley. There’s an entire section dedicated to helping parents improve their families’ technology habits. I was talking to my wife, Christie, about Earley’s thoughts during our drive home to Minnesota.

We both realized that many of the issues Earley brought up haven’t been issues for us — and some of that is because of laziness (or poverty haha!) on our part. For example, we’ve never really struggled with technology because our kids have never even worked a tablet. We don’t have Netflix or a smartTV or something else that makes media content absorption relatively easy for us, and thus, our kids haven’t been super baked into the whole ‘screen revolution’ like most of their peers.

Honestly, it’s almost gotten to the point where we’re sort of looking at each other and thinking, ‘is it possible to raise kids who’ve never even seen a movie?’ (Ok, that will probably not happen….but…the principle remains: if you don’t ever introduce something to your kids, then they can’t really know what they’re missing out on, right?).

We’ve witnessed some massive benefits already in our kids’ stamina, focus, creativity and verbal engagement with each other and us. I mean, they rode in their car seats for two 20+ hour drives with toys, paper, snacks and the company of each other and Ajee. Amazingly, the other day, Novi was playing with an old calculator — which is actually her phone — and said, “I need to send a text.”

I wasn’t altogether shocked. She’s seen us send text messages before. But not a lot. And yet, she’s already picked up on the idea of text messaging, understands it, and wants to mimic her folks in sending one herself.

Alright, if you’re gagging while reading this so far, at least humor me while I take a stab at an athletic application.

I think ‘laziness’ in and of itself is really never a great thing to cultivate in athletics or life. But, shaping our environment to make easy — or even lazy — decisions the ‘right’ decisions might be.

You can make the lazy decision to eat healthy by only stocking your fridge with whole foods.

If you’re too lazy to upload things to Strava, then you never have to deal with the mental anxiety of keeping up with the Joneses, or Jonases….or Johaugs.

You can make the lazy decision to add a few extra Ks on your bike by riding to work — if you keep procrastinating on that oil change…..

Alright, maybe I’m not actually on to any historic breakthrough after all.

Keep on Striving. Keep on Skiing.