Studies have shown that there is indeed a real connection between laziness and a high intelligence.
But how can that be!? When we think of the most successful people, we do not equate ‘lazy’ with them. That may be true, however, some of the most brainiac of the bunch would gladly admit to being called lazy.
As with many things, it’s how you perceive the word. What do you think of when the word ‘lazy’ walks in five minutes late? Sloppy handwriting? Protruding bellies on the couch? Sipping hot chocolate at 8am while your friends are out jogging?
Well, a group of Florida researchers from the Gulf Coast University, used a questionnaire on a group on students and concluded that supported their hypothesis and called it – ‘need for cognition’. But it is known to us common folk as laziness! The 2015 study, published in the Journal of Health Psychology, took a group of 60 students and split them into two groups; ‘thinkers’ and ‘non-thinkers’.
The participants wore activity trackers for seven days. And from the data, researchers deduced that those with a higher IQ didn’t get bored easily; satisfied to simply sit around with their thoughts and analyse the world around them. While their counterparts became easily bored when asked to sit and sort through the jungle in their minds. Instead they craved physical activity and active tasks to engage their brains.
So, should you go and put ‘lazy’ on your CV? Weellll… unless you’re a smooth talker, I wouldn’t recommend doing that. As I said before people have a bad perception of what being lazy means. I mean, we’ve literally been taught that laziness is the sure-fire way to embarrassingly secure your spot in your parents’ house. Leaving you with cans of disappointment strewn across the floor and a shiny new bald head to match the gross sticky carpets you’ve resorted to sleeping on, as you sold your mattress online to pay for your daily intake of instant ramen. Basically, we’ve been told that lazy is good and Bill Gates-work ethic is #goals!
But as many billionaires and entrepreneurs have shown – laziness is just a way of eliminating unnecessary steps and coming up with efficient methods. So, if you wanna be bold and reassure your employer that you can be the awesome strategic thinker their company needs – then by all means, go forth! And while we can’t change the way people think overnight (yet), all we can do it sit back, put some Simply Red on and think of ways to get out of the plans your friends made for your group.
But that’s the thing! It’s not the thinking bit people are warning lazybums against, but the sedentary life! Just because your brain is happy with video games or sofa surfing, does not mean it is good to sit inside a dank room with those sticky carpets. If you are a lazy-naut, happy sit around and work on efficiently getting people their pizza orders or how to make your company more money, sure, you do you. But please at least take a walk on the beach or visit a farmstead on the weekends. And if you’d like some inspo on beautiful places to visit in Cape Town, check out my holiday review posts.
Also! Even though these finding are pretty awesome, it doesn’t seem like any other tests are being done to support these findings that were done on a pretty small group. So, these findings can’t really be applied generally – but, it’s still cool to think that you could be the next Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk just by alphabetising the weird ideas swimming in your brain.
References:
FLOOD, R. (2017). RESEARCH SUGGESTS BEING LAZY IS A SIGN OF HIGH INTELLIGENCE. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/research-suggests-being-lazy-is-a-sign-of-high-intelligence-a7176136.html
POPOMARONIS, T. (2019). Science: Lazy people are likely to be smarter, more successful, and better employees. Who knew? Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/the-science-backed-reason-lazy-people-are-smarter-more-successful-and-better-employees.html
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