I don't believe in laziness anymore
It's the dopamine
With discussions still rumbling on whether this current young generation really is the laziest yet, and movements such as anti-work, act your wage, and let it rot,1 I began to think about laziness in general.
If you look at proponents of anti-work or the #actyourwage hashtag, they are not demanding a life spent sitting on the sofa, eating vegan Ben and Jerry's. They are highlighting the ever-widening chasm between pay and workload in an economic climate where wages don't keep pace with bills. And, perhaps in despair of ever being able to reach the heights expected of them (having watched millennials become the first generation in a long time to be worse off than their parents), they have chosen to prioritise their private life over work. Yearly mass layoffs all around the globe don't help - you quickly notice that if costs need to be cut, anyone can be out the door.
I don't remember when I realised that the approach we are taught in school - work hard and you will succeed - doesn't apply in the working world. The most strenuous jobs aren't the best paid - in fact, there is often no direct correlation between effort and income at all.
And actually, the accusation of being lazy - the greatest possible insult in hypercapitalism - makes little sense.
We all know people who find it hard to motivate themselves and, in general, this problem is not met with a great deal of sympathy. Why didn't they start studying sooner? Why didn't they prepare for that presentation earlier? Why don’t they pull themselves together and get on with it? Laziness is seen as a choice.
And yet, this overall approach to life, that get-up-and-go and motivation, is shaped by chemicals within our bodies that most people never think about - and would not dream of trying to influence.
The main factor determining how motivated we are is, in fact, dopamine - people who have a lower dopamine baseline2 are generally going to be less motivated.
While neurotransmitters shape local communication between neurons using synaptic release, neuromodulators like dopamine have a more wide-ranging effect. Dopamine can influence communication between hundreds or even thousands of neurons at once in a process called volumetric release. Using the mesocorticolimbic pathway,3 dopamine influences drive and craving, which help us to achieve our goals. This chemical therefore has an incredibly powerful effect on our energy levels and feelings of motivation.
The reward pathway shapes your mindset - whether you’re aiming to get that second date or finish a degree.
And with dopamine come further substances that protect us from the sin of laziness and keep us motivated: Neurons that release dopamine also release glutamate, a neurotransmitter that makes nearby neurons more active - so we feel stimulated and more alert. Your body even uses dopamine to create adrenaline, which we need for energy and without which we can't do anything at all.
A low dopamine baseline is often simply how someone is built, but those with access to knowledge can influence the chemical setup they were born with. You can implement specific techniques and, with some extra cash, buy supplements that up dopamine to increase motivation and concentration. You can take cold baths, or buy L-tyrosine or mucuna pruriens capsules (the beans contain Levodopa, a precursor to dopamine) - or you can employ growth mindset techniques that encourage your body to produce more dopamine while doing the work, rather than concentrating purely on the reward.
On the surface, this seems like an amazing opportunity to achieve equality and enable all of us to meet our goals.
But self-optimisation requires knowledge, time, and the educational background that gives you the tools you need to sift through mounds of information. In all likelihood, it will also require a sufficiently high dopamine baseline to find the motivation to do all of this research in the first place. And even with the internet apparently making information available to everyone, the reality is that if you are working two jobs while caring for parents and/or children, you won't have the time or headspace to invest energy in research like this. You're too busy getting by.
To me, it seems like the majority will be left behind.
In fact, this ever increasing number of ways to boost dopamine could easily widen the gap between the haves and have-nearly-nots even further.
What is more, some people are unable to take supplements such as those mentioned above - anything that provides an extreme dopamine boost is dangerous for people with bipolar, schizophrenia, or anxiety - or for anyone who has experienced a psychotic episode. This could pose yet another barrier to those with brain-related illnesses in the workplace, who will potentially have to compete with colleagues able to artificially boost their concentration to achieve more in the same timeframe.
What we need is greater understanding of our differences - and greater knowledge of how the brain is built.
Rather than viewing laziness as a choice, perhaps we should approach it as yet another example of human diversity. In fact, laziness can be a beautiful thing. I will never forget my first boyfriend at university - he was so chilled, he was practically horizontal. And I came straight from grammar school, where grades and building up your CV were all that mattered, and where hacking the computer system wasn’t a problem if you were top of your year. Californian chillaxing was something very new to me.
Of course, it can get to the stage where laziness is making life difficult. But maybe, instead of judging, we should offer help to those held back in their working life by a lack of motivation in the same way we help those struggling with other brain-related illnesses. Because laziness, as it is understood in our capitalist culture, doesn’t really exist.
For more on hypercapitalism, its effects on individuals, and the grassroots backlash, take a look at my article on China below:
Your body has a baseline level of dopamine - the amount generally in circulation. This general level is created in a process that neuroscientists refer to as tonic release. But you also experience peaks that rise above that baseline - this is phasic release, and can be triggered by sports (if you enjoy them!), cigarettes, chocolate, sex, and other activities that feel good. So if you feel lazy or lethargic, you’re in a low-dopamine state. And if you’re feeling excited and motivated, this is a high-dopamine state.
The mesocorticolimbic pathway stretches from the ventral tegmentum on the floor of the midbrain to the ventral striatum and the prefrontal cortex.
I can recommend this source for a fascinating and accessible look at neuroscience - the Huberman Lab podcast by neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, in particular the episode Controlling Your Dopamine For Motivation, Focus & Satisfaction below:
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