CAN LAZINESS BE CURED.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 127, 31 December 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

CAN LAZINESS BE CURED.

BY EDWIN F. BOWERS.. M b in the " Sunday Magazine' ol America.

A certain melancholy and philosophical gentleman once observed: "There is no good nor bad but thinking makes it so. Similarly, these whom we are constrained t< -*\;s an lazy might argue tiiat a fevcrsn activity is in no wise to be preferred to a ruminative and deliberate calm. And most doctors would heartily agree with them in this.

There are those who were born indisposed to exertion, or disinclined to dksipatc vital energy, and who remain in that condition.

There are others who have achieved this phlegmatic state, and who have acquired the gentle art of shifting their burdens by the cumulative force of suggestion. They have been told so often that they are lazy that eventu-

ally they themselves come to believe it. And there are others who have had laziness thrust upon them by long-con-tinued and debilitating illnesses, lnsutHcicnt food or sleep, or the manuold diseases that serve to poison the organism, slow it up, or make a dullard of even the brightest and most ambitious. The first class are usually lazy concerning only the th'ngs we think they should be energetic about, but are active enough on other and to them more important things. If the lazy one be a child, a thorough physical examination should first be made —with especial reference to disclosing the presence of adenoids, or to discovering any abnormal condition in the eyes or in the stomach. If everything io lound to be normal, a thorough test by the Uinet method should be made.

This will determine whether a child who has lived fifteen years is fifteen years old, or whether—so far as concerns his mental 6tatus —he is only eight or ten years old. If this latter is found to be the case his entire training should be altered to adapt to his " mental age." He should be given studies or some occupation which will conform to n s mental needs, and which will arouse ins sympathetic interest. It is the fauit of his ciders if they condemn as lazy a boy who would work his head off building a chicken coop, but who eanmit be clubbed 10 practising the violin. And tins same principle applies to lazy men and women—who are, atfer all, only grown-up lazy boys and girls. The only- trouble with these recalcitrant ones is that their jobs are not fitted to them nor they to their jobs. Change of occupation cures this form of laziness —always providing that the change arouses intelligent interest.

The second category remain lazy because they hesitate to dispel the illusion existing in the minds of their detractors as to their inherent and fundamentally perfect state of laziness. The cure ior these is to reverse the thing that made them what they arc. In other words, they should bo thoroughly and effectually " jollied"—not obviously and patently, but subtly and dexteriously, gradually arousing an eager anticipation, and a willingness to justify the generous faith of their endorsers.

Tlio third variety of laziness is much more simple—after we find out wha* causes it. Anaemia, constipation, sedentary habits, lack of fresh an - , too much food or a plethoric quantity of the wrong kind of food, a sluggish Pivcr, repression of or abolition of the play instinct, hookworm, intestinal parasites, sleeping-sickness, the heat, indigestion, excessive us© of tobacco, tea, or coffee, to much work or study, or ennui-producing play and not enough honest, sweat-producing work —in fact, anything and everything that tends to make the normal abnormal, and which interferes with the proper functioning of a healthy body, will cause laziness.

And in this, it might be added, Nature is simply acting upon the defensive. She is merely indulging in a little conservation of energy—naturally refraining from throwing good vitality after bad.

There is a hopeful prognosis for this species of laziness, especially if the cause be a physical one. For physical defects are curable in about ninety-five per cent, of instances. Laziness its curable—if v.e know what causjc.s it. and how to cure the cause.