Fixing Your Earth [Laziness] - 002 Side Tracked

דע את מידותיך הדרכה מעשית – עפר-עצלות – מפורט  002 מים דעפר דעפר 

Water-of-Earth: ‘Dragged’ Into Laziness

With siyata d’shmaya we will continue here to discuss laziness. Now we will discuss laziness that stems from “water”-of-earth.

As explained earlier, the root of laziness is in the “heaviness” within the element of earth. The more “heaviness” there is, the more laziness a person will have. Laziness stemming from “water-of-earth” is when a person is “dragged” towards laziness, just as water is dragged down its current.

Others are drawn towards laziness by their very nature, and this we addressed in the previous chapter. By their very nature, they don’t move. In its impaired state, this is the evil trait of total laziness, and when this nature is repaired, it is holy, and it is known as menuchah, serenity. That is a brief synopsis of the laziness that stems from “earth”-of-earth.

Here we are speaking “water”-of-earth, which is a person who isn’t lazy by nature, and it is just has a nature to become ‘dragged’ after something which offers him some serenity, and he gets sidetracked from this serene state, so he finds it hard to continue what he was doing. This breeds laziness, as a result.

Here are some examples of this kind of laziness.

Example 1 – Sidetracked By A Phone Call

A person gets up in the morning and davens, and is on his way to go to work or wherever else he has to go, and he passes by a store and he’s hungry, so he goes inside to eat something. Then, he gets a phone call while he’s eating, and he remains on his phone, as the minutes pass by. He doesn’t budge from his place, until he is finished his phone call. He becomes ‘dragged’ into the little bit of serenity he feels, and he doesn’t leave the situation, and as a result, he doesn’t continue moving to where he has to get to. He is too stuck within this pseudo state of “menuchah”, and he feels like he can’t part from it.

Example 2 – Lost In Conversation

Similarly, a person meets a good friend of his, and they get into a long conversation. Perhaps he hasn’t seen him in years, so he is very compelled to converse with him and catch up on the last few years. He may have a very good reason of why he lost track of time. Once he begins talking, he finds it difficult to return to whatever he was on his way to doing.

A more extreme level of this problem is when a person gets sidetracked, and then he decides it’s too late to continue with his day, so he ‘throws in the towel’. He figures he should return to his house and eat something. He goes back to his house and then he decides maybe he can use some rest….

He becomes ‘dragged’ further and further after different activities, once he feels a little bit of serenity while he’s sidetracked. Once he gets sidetracked and he’s enjoying the serenity of it, he is thrown off schedule, and he doesn’t push himself to go take care of whatever he was on his way to do. Once he enters a serene state, he doesn’t want to leave it, and laziness takes him over.

Example 3 – Answering The Phone While Doing Housework

Here is another example. A housewife is in middle of taking care of things in the home, and she gets a phone call. She is talking on the phone and she needs to concentrate on the conversation, so she is very focused on her conversation, and she loses track of what she was in middle of doing. In our generation, there is a problem that people talk endlessly and try multi-task at the same time. Finally, the woman ends the conversation, and then she finds it overwhelming to continue everything else she has to do in the house. Once she became serene from the conversation on the phone, laziness takes her over, and she finds it difficult to go back to what she was doing before.

Change of Routine and Lulled Into Serenity

In summation, the problem is when a person gets sidetracked when in the middle of taking care of something, and when the distraction lasts for a considerable amount of time and the person feels serene from it, the person finds it difficult to break away from the serenity. The person then finds it hard to get back into what he was doing.

Getting deeper into this problem, when one becomes dragged after something which offers him a break from what he was doing, and he becomes serene from it, he experiences the pleasure of serenity. He then finds it hard to part from this serenity, so he becomes lazy. Although the power of serenity (menuchah) is holy at its root, it is evil when it manifests as laziness, where it becomes an unwillingness to act, a clearly unproductive and detrimental trait.

Offset By Any Change

Going further with the problem, in some cases, there are people who become somewhat paralyzed by even the smallest change. Once they go through some small change, they find it hard to return to what they were doing before the change took place. They find it hard to make the transition from serenity to action, from non-movement to movement. When a person becomes dragged after something that offers him even a small feeling of serenity, he may find it hard to change from this serene state and to make a transition into an active state.

To get a better idea of this issue, let us examine the opposite problem than this: When a person has a dominant element of wind, and certainly if his dominant nature is wind-of-wind, he has a nature to always be on the move, and he would be going against his nature if he were to make himself still and non-moving. It is very difficult for such a person to make the transition from a state of movement to non-movement. This is also an example of difficulty with transitioning, but in the opposite manner.

Thus, laziness also brings it with another issue: It causes a person to find difficulty with changes.

Of the four elements, the element that does the least well with change is earth, because earth doesn’t move and therefore it is unchanging. Fire is jumpy and unstable, so it is always moving. Wind is always in movement. Water, unless it is contained, will naturally move from place to place. Earth is the only element which stays in its place. It is unmoving and unchanging.

Therefore, a person with a lot of earth in his nature will find change to be very difficult. Once he goes through even a slight change, he will have difficulty transitioning to a different state.

There are two general scenarios of laziness. One kind of laziness is when a person simply doesn’t act. Another kind of laziness is when a person doesn’t want to transition from his current state, because he stays where he is. In fact, even if he is in middle of moving, he may find it difficult to stop moving and to become more serene, because he finds it difficult to make any transition right now – even if he will be prevented from experiencing any more menuchah. He would rather not go through any sort of change, even if the change would provide him with more serenity.

To give an example, some people are ‘workaholics’ – they find it difficult not to work. Whereas most people would rather take it easy and refrain from physical work, some people feel weak if they aren’t involved in some of kind of work. Thus, besides for the problem of laziness itself, there is also the problem of avoiding any sort of change.

In summation, when a person’s laziness stems from water-of-earth, he becomes ‘dragged’ into different activities which throw him off track, and he experiences a bit of serenity in these little breaks, which he finds difficult to part from. He finds it difficult to make any transition out of his current state and to return to what he was in middle of doing, due to the heavy, permanent nature of “earth” which dominates him, which makes it hard for him to make any changes. So he stays in the situation that gives him some serenity, where he gets sidetracked and taken out of his routine.

The Solution: Practicing Change of Routine

The solution to this issue consists of several parts.

The first part of the solution is only meant to be practiced by those who have a dominant nature of earth: A person like this needs to get used to practicing changes.

If one has a dominant nature of wind, he has the opposite problem – he makes too many changes, and he has very little permanence. He is the type of person who is always switching where he lives, switching his study partners, switching his workplace, etc. But if one has a dominant nature of earth (and certainly earth-of-earth), he needs to counter his nature by getting used to small changes – for the sake of experiencing changes.

1)    For example, he should try switching the place where he davens (as long as it is within his space of “four cubits”, so that it is still considered davening in his regular place, as is the halachah).

2)    If one usually sits at a certain place by his table, he should try a different seat.

3)    If one is used to sleeping in a certain room in his house, he should try sleeping in a different room at times.

4)    If sleeps on a certain bed in a certain room, he should try sleeping on a different bed and in a different room.

5)    If he takes a certain route when walking to shul, he should try a different route.

So when a person has a lot of earth in his soul, he is drawn towards serenity and non-movement, but he must go against his nature sometimes, and get used to changes, even when there is no particular reason to change. Even though this may seem pointless, the person gains the ability to make transitions and changes, and he learns how to against his “earth” nature.

The following is an important example of this idea:

6)    When a person gets woken in middle of the night, like when the baby is crying, naturally, he wants to go back to sleep. He prefers to let the baby cry and fall asleep eventually, rather than to get up and put the baby back to sleep. Perhaps he has the belief that it’s better for the child to let him get used to crying, so that the child shouldn’t become spoiled. Sometimes, he may be correct. But whether he is right or wrong for doing this, when he gets woken up in his sleep, his laziness becomes dominant at that time, and he finds it difficult to get out of his bed. This would be the perfect opportunity to get used to changes. He should force himself to get out of bed and tend to the baby, even if he feels it is unnecessary.

The gain of this is that he is learning how to go against his laziness, by moving himself out of bed and making the transition from non-movement to movement.

If one wants to take this even further, if a person wakes up in middle of the night and if he isn’t sure if it’s time for him to get up or not, he should force himself to get out of bed anyway, simply for the purpose of getting used to change and movement. Of course, one should go about this sensibly, and he should not do this if it will cause him to be tired the next day.

As long as it is sensible to do so, one should train himself to making such changes, so that he learns how to make the transition from serenity to action, from non-movement to movement.

Transitioning With Ease

When one practices these kinds of changes, he will find that even when he does becomes ‘dragged’ into certain situations, he will still find it easier to transition back to what he was doing before, because he can now handle the idea of changes.

In addition to this gain, even when he does become ‘dragged’, it won’t be as much, so he will find it easier to pull himself away.

As a result, when he meets a friend and he gets into a conversation, he won’t get too caught up in the conversation, and he’ll be able to stop the conversation and part ways from his friend, so that he can get back to his routine. Instead of becoming totally dragged after the pleasant serenity he finds in the conversation – instead of talking continuously with his friend, with no restraint - he can remain somewhat objective while in the midst of conversing, so that he doesn’t become totally lost in the conversation.  

And in the case of the woman who gets a phone call while she’s doing household tasks, as a result of practicing changes and transitioning, she will find that she doesn’t become totally dragged after the conversation she’s in middle of, which were causing here to totally relax and put on her tasks on hold. For example, instead of falling onto the couch in a totally relaxed state, where she doesn’t do a thing, she makes sure that she doesn’t become too relaxed, so that she can continue whatever she was doing. She may allow herself to sit down on the chair or couch, so that she can relax a bit – but she makes sure not to become too relaxed. 

Avoiding Total Serenity

The idea is that whenever a person is ‘dragged’ into some activity, he can train himself not to become totally dragged, so that he can easily transition out of it when he needs to. Instead of letting himself experience total menuchah, he can give himself partial menuchah – he lets himself relax only a little bit, but not totally.

When one allows himself to be in a state of total relaxation and rest, where he feels free from all constraints of life (which abuses the soul’s power of “freedom”, also called menuchah\serenity), this will strongly awaken his element of earth and cause it to dominate a person, leading towards a “pseudo” state of menuchah, (serenity), a.k.a. “laziness”. Therefore, even when a person needs to rest and wind down from activities, he must apply some boundaries to his relaxation, so that he doesn’t fall into a state of total relaxation.

This was mentioned earlier, that when water-of-earth is left impaired, the person’s nature drags him towards “pseudo”-menuchah (serenity), a form of evil laziness, and the course of action to take is that a person should allow himself to become only “partially” dragged towards relaxing, as opposed to total relaxation.

Too Much Sleep

Here is an example. When some people go to sleep, they feel as if the whole world is asleep with them, and that there is nothing else in the world right now. The person decides to go to sleep in a certain place, falls into his bed, and there’s nothing else in his world right then.

In more extreme cases of this problem, which is more common with teenagers and adolescents (and even more common with girls), especially when they go on a vacation, is that they may sleep for many hours, uninterrupted, and way more than necessary. What about waking up on time to daven and recite Kerias Shema? What time do they get up? Sometime around 12 or 1 in the afternoon, and sometimes even at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Even then, they may lie a few hours in bed until they finally get up.

What happens to the soul, as a result of this? What does the soul feel from this? The person who gets used to this will form the belief that he\she can sleep as much as possible, and if he\she were to get up from bed at 9 a.m. in the morning (G-d forbid), it feels terribly disturbing, and the whole day is ruined….

The problem with such vacations, where people sleep for so many uninterrupted hours, is that they accustom the soul to situations of endless sleep, where person wishes to experience a kind of serenity that is unlimited, in which he\she does not do a thing for the entire day, before finally getting out of bed. Living in such a way causes a person to want nothing other than menuchah (serenity) in his life, which is obviously a pseudo, un-genuine kind of menuchah. Clearly, a person who lives this way is greatly lacking in yiras shomayim (fear of Heaven), as anyone can understand. It is the greatest “throwing off the yoke of Heaven” possible, when a person allows himself to sleep endlessly.

Certainly, a person needs to rest. One certainly needs to relax, because he needs yishuv hadaas (a settled mind) and he needs to relax his body and soul. But a person who accepts upon himself the yoke of Heaven doesn’t allow himself to be free from all constraints of life and to experience unlimited menuchah\serenity. There is no such place in the soul, for any G-d fearing Jew.

When one allows himself to become drawn into days and vacations where he wants to experience nothing but unlimited relaxation, he awakens the impaired water-of-earth in his soul, which makes him lazy from the serenity.

Placing Boundaries On Our Power of Serenity

A true kind of life, in contrast to the above, is for a person to place some constraints on his ability to rest, even as he is in the midst of relaxing and resting. He never lets a state of menuchah totally take him over with no restraint.

For example, a person should not lay on bed and go to sleep unless he absolutely has a need to. Of course, if a person just had surgery or if he must be laid up to rest, then he needs to lay on a bed, whether he needs to sleep or not. But in normal situations, a person should avoid falling into a state of non-movement, where he doesn’t do a thing. If he allows himself to fall into such a state, it is total laziness, in which he is living a life free from any constraints, and the antithesis to a Torah-true life.

The average person needs somewhere between 6-7 hours of sleep. If a person has very little spirituality in his life [his physical needs will be stronger, and], when he is on a vacation, he may get a little more sleep than this, such as an hour and a half more than what he actually needs, but not more than that. That is not to say that this is the ideal way to live, but he is not being detrimental to his soul if he gets a little more sleep than necessary. But if one is sleeping way more than necessary, the mere act of lying in a bed for so many hours gets him used to a state of inactivity where he feels like he doesn’t have to do a thing the entire day, and this is detrimental to his soul.

There is a deep, unmoving place in the soul which craves a state of total menuchah. But when people want to access this place the soul, it usually stems from an evil desire for laziness, to be free from all constraints of life. So although the state of absolute menuchah is in a deep place in the soul, it is the “animal soul” which uses this deep space in the soul for its own purposes, where it clearly becomes detrimental.

A person should never allow himself to be totally free from all constraints of life, and therefore, he should never allow himself to fall into a state of total laziness and non-movement, such as those who allow themselves to sleep for long, uninterrupted amounts of time.

Leaving A “Space” Within Your Serenity

The ideal way to live is, that in whatever situation of “serenity” a person has in his life, where he relaxes and unwinds from the constraints of life, he must leave a “space” within this relaxation for anything else that he will need to take care of. Similar to how we must leave a space in the home in remembrance of the Beis HaMikdash, we need to leave a space as well within our own menuchah\serenity\relaxation, so that we don’t enter a state of total menuchah.

If one has a dominant nature of earth-of-earth, this will be most difficult, because his soul is naturally drawn towards menuchah, and in an extreme way. Others are drawn towards excessive relaxation not because they have a nature of earth-of-earth, but because they simply become dragged after situations that drive them into the state of earth-of-earth.

Here we have just added on another deep angle to our discussion. We are explaining here about water-of-earth. When one’s nature of water-of-earth causes him to become ‘dragged’ towards menuchah\serenity, it drags him towards the “pseudo” kind of menuchah of earth-of-earth, unproductive non-movement which is total, and which awakens the evil trait of laziness. It also can awaken the earth-of-earth in the soul, a state of total rest and freedom from all restraint, even when this is not his primary nature to act this way.

Therefore, part of repairing this nature is that a person must always leave a “space” within his relaxation, so that he should not reach a state of total serenity\menuchah. As a person gets used to working on this idea, he will slowly lessen the amount of the evil, “pseudo” kind of menuchah in his life.

On a more extreme level, there were some Gedolim who would practice this idea by sleeping without a pillow, or by keeping their feet outside of the bed, so that they wouldn’t become too comfortable while sleeping. These are subtle ideas, and they are not for all people to practice, for the simple reason that a person may not be able to sleep properly if he does this, where the loss is clearly not worth the gain. That is one extreme. But on the other extreme are those who remain asleep in their beds with not a care in the world, with no “ol” (sense of responsibility to keep the mitzvos of the Torah).

There is a middle path between these two extremes which any person can take, on any level he is on, in which a person can slowly and sensibly lessen the nature in the soul to experience the power of “freedom” (serenity\menuchah): As a general rule, one should place boundaries on how far he will relax, so that he doesn’t let the state of relaxation totally take him over. Sometimes a person is physically weak or he needs to simply relax in order to keep his body healthy, but this needs to be done sensibly.  

The very awareness of the person that there are boundaries on his relaxation is enough to avoid the dominance of earth-of-earth in the soul. A person should not allow his body to totally relax to the point that he has no sense of responsibility. Rather, he should let himself become serene and relax, but only partially, and not totally; and he must do so sensibly, according to what he needs right now.

As a person gets used to practicing this, even when he is ‘dragged’ to the nature of water-of-earth, he won’t become dragged towards the absolutely non-moving state of earth-of-earth. Even more so, with the more he works on this idea, the ‘dragging’ will be on a lesser degree. As explained earlier, he can work on this idea by getting used to small changes in his routine, so that he can relate to the idea of leaving his state of menuchah\serenity and transitioning into a state of movement.

In Conclusion

We have tried to explain here this subject in its entirety, though there is a lot more to say here. With the help of Hashem, we will say more about this [laziness] in the coming chapters.

In each of these lessons, we are attempting to explain one major point which can greatly solve the issues, and the lessons of other chapters may also be applicable to a current subject, so each person should discuss these points with others and see how to combine the information properly, what to add on and what to leave out. Of course, we cannot review each lesson as we go along, as this would take up too much time.

With siyata d’shmaya, we have explained the roots of the issue when it comes to impaired water-of-earth, and the root of how it is fixed.