Posted by Dan Ewert : 5/09/2002 12:39:00 AM (Archive Link)
I have noticed a tendency among many to go out of their way to make things easier on themselves. What’s interesting is that these people often expend more time and energy in their effort to be lazy than taking the seeming path of most resistance. I will refer to this phenomena as Misapplied Laziness. To better illustrate, I will provide some examples.

At the college from which I graduated and which I occasionally visit, there is a parking garage connected to one of the dorms and this garage lies between the dorm and the dining hall. The most direct path from the cafeteria to the dorm entrance takes you up two flights of stairs. However, many times I have witnessed students avoiding these stairs and going around to the car entrance ramp which curves back around to the dorm. There are several oddities to this. First, going the ramp route takes about 2 minutes longer than the stairs because it is a more roundabout path. Second, I can’t see that you’re conserving any energy with the ramp as opposed to the stairs. With the stairwell, you’re using your energy in one concise moment. With the ramp, however, you’re making the same amount of effort if not more, it’s just extended over a little more distance. And third, these people are always about to get run over by cars entering the garage.

Another instance of Misapplied Laziness involves something we’ve all seen in the great parking lots of America. Drivers will circle a parking lot several times in the seemingly eternal quest to find the spot closest to the door. I have even watched as drivers have passed up spaces because they think somebody leaving the store is about to vacate another space 20 feet ahead. And so they will sit there for 1 or 2 minutes waiting to park. So in their effort to save time and energy by way of a shorter walk from car to store and back, they have taken up to five minutes or more than if they had just taken one of the first spots they came upon and walked the few extra yards.

These are just two instances of people taking what they think is the easiest path but is actually contradictory to the goal they are trying to achieve: being lazy. I'm sure most can think of plenty of other examples. However, it occurs to me that aside from these more common comic shows of Misapplied Laziness, the phenomena exists in far more serious arenas. If you look at a great deal of liberal ideas that have been generated over the years, they fit the pattern. Cases in which individuals choose the path of least resistance and then later cause problems that require far more effort to fix than if the more difficult, narrow path was chosen the first time. European appeasement of the Nazis during the 1930's for example. I still get a morbid, disgusted kick out of seeing British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waving around the little piece of paper with his and Hitler's signatures and declaring, "Peace in our time." However, you can find many instances like this. The American isolationists before WWI and WWII, the give peace a chance folks before we commenced operations in Afghanistan, and now those who want us to leave Iraq alone. In all these cases, prolonged hesitation created or most assuredly would have created more problems down the line. So many people think that certain countries or groups are just acting out when they show hostility. The proper response, they say, is sympathetic understanding and giving them what they want so they'll be satisfied good, happy countries. Although, much as the spoiled, bully children these liberals think the countries resemble, the hostilities continue and they want more and more. A hostile nation doesn't change its spots or it methods when it gets one thing it wants. After the first desire is fulfilled, it will want something more. And then something will follow after that. Eventually, they'll become a true problem child that must be dealt with seriously. You'll quickly discover that you would have been better off spanking the country to begin with instead of handing it the lollipop because now you have to administer a far worse spanking and ground them... only you have to wait until daddy comes home because you've lost control of the situation. I'm tired of American realists always having to be daddy. At any rate, it's pure Misapplied Laziness. In trying to avoid trouble, you only create more for yourself.