12Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?

There is more hope for a fool than for him.

13 The sluggard says, “There is a lion in the road!

There is a lion in the streets!”

14As a door turns on its hinges,

so does a sluggard on his bed.

15 The sluggard buries his hand in the dish;

it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth.

16The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes

than seven men who can answer sensibly.

Proverbs 26:12-16

 

Habituated incapacitation.

Learned helplessness.

Underdeveloped executive function.

For all of us,

the condition takes hold when courage is crowded out by anxiety.

Lions in the street.

The future does not seem friendly…

AND

we believe we lack the wherewithal to out-do, out-smart, out-battle a lion.

AND

nobody can teach us how outsmart a pride of lions.

I am the sluggard 

when… “I need to go to work but there might be a lion.”

…when “I need to learn something but there might be a lion.”

A disconnect from the urgency of the present or the future.

Sometimes seen as procrastination. But not exactly because

a procrastinator generally is planning to do the battle

when the urgency of what matters demands it.

The sluggard doesn’t feel the urgency anymore.

Some will explore what’s going on in the brain of a sluggard.

But, what’s happening in their soul?

Where is their hope?

Where is their aspiration?

Where is their circle of hope?

The problem grows deeper as teachability decreases.

Time moves slowly for the sluggard and then its gone.

The lions have won.

What are you doing to make peace with your time devouring lions?

What are you doing to raise the urgency of what matters most?

Watch Richard Turere talk about “My invention that made peace with lions.”