In Praise of Laze

Let us consider three men and one woman, shall we? I am intimately familiar with the three men but less so with the woman, who is more like an online buddy than someone I know well.

By now you have undoubtedly heard, thought about, and possibly embraced the concept of working smarter rather than harder. It is a phrase that I first heard and read about a dozen years ago and have contemplated frequently, nearly daily, ever since.

The core of this concept goes against the very grain of what most of us have been taught and how the American educational system, and I suspect that of other countries, has been set up.

That is to say that we have been taught to follow directions, work hard, be good little rule-followers, and then the world will be ours.

But let’s consider this — do you believe in that way of thinking and doing things?

As I have gained decades of work and life experience, interacting with all types of people ranging from homeless prostitute drug addicts to billionaire investors and developers, I have learned quite a bit and am eager to share my wisdom and knowledge — and better advice — with others.

The three men and one woman that I have been thinking about this week may provide some clues that will either change your mind about working hard or, more likely, reinforce what you already know and make you reconsider how you, too, may be able to work smarter rather than harder.

The First Man

This guy lives in a smaller town in the southern part of Wisconsin, roughly midway between Milwaukee and Madison. Not a tiny town, but small, with a population of around 10,000.

On a frigid winter morning, like today, he wakes up to an alarm clock at five o’clock in the morning.

He wakes up pissed off right away about the rampant lies spread daily through the fake media and all the Libtards with their never-ending lists of rules and recommendations regarding the so-called “pandemic.” There’s always someone fully bought and paid for by the deep state spewing some nonsense and trying to force their God damned views on hard-working real Americans like him.

Those fake ideals are especially pushed on students like his niece and nephew who attend pricey universities run by lefties like AOC and Bernie Sanders. He, himself, never had the great privilege of attending university, having completed only a handful of classes at the local community college.

This man exits his rental apartment building just after six, makes his way to the truck given to him by his late father years ago, and then proceeds to meet his team leader at the first house on their list today. A house owned by another lefty who probably made his money by spreading fake news and collecting money from Satan-worshiping elites.

Nonetheless, he freezes his ass off this sub-zero degree day, first plowing the driveway and then removing dozens of dead branches that had fallen on the property since he’d last been there.

The rich asshole lives on the lake, of course, so this man also has to check on the guy’s pier just to make sure that no planks cracked off and that it remains intact for when this guy wants to screw around with his boat months from now.

He works an honest day, as the Bible preaches, for an honest day’s pay.

After plowing six driveways in the morning and completing assorted minor repairs and tasks at four of the homes, he calls his boss at just before 3 PM to see if there are any more properties or tasks to attend to this day.

After answering a question or two about minor repair work that he performed on the gutters, one of the decks, and de-icing two boats, his boss tells him to call it a day at 3:30, nine hours after he plowed the first driveway.

At $16.50 per hour, more than twice the state law minimum wage, plus the lack of documentation that allows him to collect some of that free government money, the man feels pretty good about the $148 in cash that he made for the day.

An avid ice fisherman, he might even try his luck out at his favorite spot for an hour or two this afternoon to see if any trout are biting.

He has plans to meet up with his buddy, Justin, at Loopy’s tonight where they serve $2 drafts and have their Wednesday Wing special. He might even bring the wife.

No doubt that it would not hurt to spend $25 or $35 of his hard-earned cash on a good time out tonight. After all, he has now made more than enough to cover the $900 rent, pay for utilities, and after his next government check comes in on the first, he and his wife should be set until the next payday.

The Second Man

The second man is a poor sleeper and thus remained laying in bed until nearly eight o’clock. He does not use his alarm clock on this day but hears the coffee brewing away and the great smell of it wafts up to his bedroom.

He turns his head to find his Baby staring at him, meaning that she cannot hold it in much longer. His wife continues snoring away.

He stumbles out of bed, puts his Fitbit on, and then relieves himself before he lets his Baby outside to do the same.

This man logs into the secure VPN for his employer at just after 8:30, skims twenty new emails, only one of which actually requires a response, which he painstakingly writes and improves over the course of about ten minutes, making some changes here and there to make it sound professional while simultaneously not making any promises or bold declarations about the project at hand.

Over the next eight hours, he consumes a massive amount of coffee, enjoys a bagel with his wife, toggles between the VPN to Twitter, Medium, and a variety of websites and online publications, reads for at least an hour, and proceeds to go for walks about three times totaling just over an hour and a half.

During the almost eight hours that this man is logged onto the VPN, he works for nearly an hour on a report that will be presented to the city council in a little over a week, responds to two more routine emails, and fields three phone calls totaling just over forty minutes on his cell phone, forwarded from his office phone.

In all, this man did roughly two hours’ worth of work over a span of eight hours, but not the kind of work like digging ditches or serving dishes of food. Just writing the first half of a staff report, replying to some mundane inquiries, and then describing the process and likelihood of success for three projects ranging from a Hell NO! to a maybe to a Hell Yes!

At just under sixty per hour, with full benefits, this man is frustrated at having earned less than five hundred dollars for his efforts when so many friends and family earn multiples of that per day.

He is constantly working on side hustles like writing online and creating and trying to sell NFTs.

On days when dividends are collected or an NFT sells or something written starts trending, he feels happier knowing that he made at least five hundred dollars that day, which just so happens to be about the exact amount that his family will spend, minus the fifty dollars or so that he invests each and every day of the year.

Besides walking and doing a few push-ups, this man did not break a sweat or wear anything but his sweats. After all, it is a Wednesday.

The Third Man

The third man wanted to get the fuck out of the cold, even though by many standards it is not very cold where his primary residence is located. About forty-five degrees on this mid-January day.

He enjoys traveling and because the arenas in which he works are nearly all remote on Zoom, he decided to work from a comfortable place this week. His children are remote learning this week, so he brought his middle child with him, a twelve-year-old daughter.

After a pleasant afternoon spent at the beach, a great dinner delivered, working out for an hour, and helping his daughter with her math homework, this man spent over three hours last night refining a complaint that will most definitely cause some waves and major consternation among those parties named.

After all, who wants to have their business’s very dirtiest laundry aired in public?

The complaint had originally been drafted by one of his employees, but before he, himself, files it and represents it on the record, he wants to ensure that there are no technical errors whatsoever and that the logic and potential repercussions are spelled out in exact detail.

Because he worked on it until nearly midnight, he slept until ten in the morning this day.

By the time he rolled out of bed, his highly self-motivated daughter had already made herself breakfast and was saying words in Spanish into the new iMac Pro that he bought for her for this school year.

Affirming that she, too, wanted a smoothie, this man did not really feel like making one, so he went on an app to have smoothies delivered ASAP.

On this day, besides spending a few hours at the beach with his daughter and working out for at least an hour, this man’s primary objective is to spend a few hours working on an answer to a motion for summary judgment.

Par for the course, every case that this man has brought before the Federal court goes through this particular thing. Even though it is routine, he still must file an answer by Friday, or this multimillion-dollar class action would be summarily dismissed. And with a class of seventy plaintiffs who were majorly shat on by a well-known corporation, it is safe to assume that the defendant will not want any of the details made public.

With a likely settlement somewhere in the $1.75- to $3-million-dollar range, this case has a high probability of netting him a solid year’s worth of income considering that he takes a third off the top before the plaintiffs split the remainder. He does not feel so bad about having to spend at least $25,000 for staff time and hiring an expert witness.

Although he loathes working by the hour, he agreed to represent a corporate client as well. That particular case is fairly convoluted and requires a great deal of legal research, something that he delegated to one of his two paralegals. So in addition to drafting the new complaint and working on the answer to the motion, he may put in an hour or two on this other case considering that he recently raised his hourly rate from $500 to $600.

Since his class-action cases fare so much better than just grinding out hours as if completing homework assignments, he had contemplated raising his hourly fee from $500 to $700 since it is a new year. But going that high just seemed too greedy, especially considering that he has become very friendly with the two corporate clients that hire him to vigorously defend them against unjustified claims.

Funny thing, considering that he met one of them after settling a case against his company.

But inflation is a real thing and the rising cost of his employees, including his nephew now, continues rising.

So after another mid-week day of relaxing at the beach, enjoying nice meals, rewriting a previous answer to a motion with the facts from this new case, and then spending two hours at night writing his own motion for a summary judgment for his college friend’s licensed marijuana business, this man goes to sleep around midnight again.

Before going to bed, he adds another two hours ($1,200 total) to his billing for his friend, bringing the total on the case to almost eight thousand this month, which should foot the bill for the property that he rented this week ($450 per night) and another that he will be renting next month. Plus a few more smoothies.

He will wrap up the answer to the motion for the much bigger case tomorrow.

The Creative Woman

This woman in her early thirties had been widely criticized by both friends and family for majoring in art.

Her working-class parents expected her to go to college to become a professional — a teacher, a lawyer, or perhaps even a doctor.

Why waste tens of thousands of dollars to major in something as frivolous as art?

After kicking around various art galleries as a salesperson, trying to sell her own paintings at art fairs and at any venue that would let her place them on their walls, and then painting for hire on platforms like Fiverr and Upwork, she came to believe that they were right.

Perhaps it is time to supplement her bachelor’s degree in (art) with a teaching license and then help little kids create their own art. After all, there is no better part-time job than being a teacher, with the days ending early, a holiday or in-service day nearly every week, and summers off to boot.

Then something happened during the pandemic.

Digital art, like she had been getting into for years trying to promote her works on social media, began selling at a premium. Better yet, they could sell for currencies that were not exactly tracked by the Powers That Be.

Because her eye for pleasing designs, coupled with her impeccable tastes, creativity, and technical skills made for artwork that appealed to certain collectors, she entered the realm of NFTs just as they became popular with the masses.

She did not create something as widely popular as bored apes, CryptoPunks, or Meebits, but her work first began selling at the pace of one or sometimes even two per month in the early days of 2021 and then grew to the point where she was selling an average of four to six pieces per week by the fall.

If anything, she had to work on her artwork more than ever because the opportunity was nearly limitless. She also wanted to maximize her profits before people caught on that the overall utility of these things is nonexistent. They exist only by the pure supply-and-demand curve of people wanting them and willing to pay for them.

Even though she sold her first piece on OpenSea for only .025 Ethereum or the equivalent of $25 at the time, she now routinely sold pieces for .2 to .5 ETH, or the equivalent of $600 to $2,000, depending on what day of the week it is. She even sold a few pieces for over one ETH and now holds over 30 tokens in her crypto wallet.

Unfortunately, real-world costs crept in from time to time. After having lived with a roommate for a few years, she now had her own place which, of course, led to additional costs.

Because she hates those “gas fees” so much, she would not convert her ETH to cash more than once every few months. Plus, she did not want to create a taxable event. But when USD is needed, what choice does she have?

So at the beginning of the new year, right after the price of ETH dropped by a bit, she was forced to cash out five of her 31.25 ETH on January 3rd, resulting in a transfer of just under $19,000 to her bank account after the exchange took its cut.

Also, unfortunately, she had to transfer $4,000 of that into her savings account, since the state and the federal government will demand their share of her income even though it was generated purely by her own creativity and know-how.

After paying her rent, health insurance payment, and student loan payment for the month with fiat currency, she still had a bit under $11,000 to ride out the next two or so months while hoping that the price of Ethereum starts rising again so her remaining 26.5 ETH (she had sold another NFT for 0.25) would be worth $100,000 in USD, an amount that could sustain her lifestyle for a year or two while she creates newer, better, and more profitable NFTs.

So Who’s Lazy?

Are any of the four above people lazy on this early-February Wednesday?

Should it be worth more to sue a corporation than it is to assist an entrepreneur with opening a business?

Does creating a digital art token with photo editing software have more value than a week’s worth of toiling for a landscaping company?

Is it better to plow someone’s driveway at 6:30 AM than it is to sleep in until 10 and then order smoothies on Uber Eats before heading to the beach?

So “lazy” may not be exactly the right word.

I am clearly not talking about the kind of lazy person who is slothful, haphazard, and unproductive. Not someone whose butt or back is rooted to the couch shoving potato chips into his or her mouth and guzzling cheap beer while watching reality TV shows.

What I am referring to is someone who attains success with moderate effort, largely based on his or her particular set of knowledge and skills.

Who’s to say that copying and pasting a five-page document on a laptop for a few hours while sitting on a balcony by the beach is worth more than a week of toiling in the cold for others?

Who’s to say that creating a digital collage for five hours in the evening from the comfort of one’s home isn’t worth more than two days’ worth of trying to assist entrepreneurs and developers in a mid-sized Chicago area suburb?

It is none other than the economy. As James Carville once famously opined, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Unfortunately, it took me until my early forties to understand that although working hard is certainly nothing to be ashamed of, it is clearly not the hardest-working people who gain the most economically.

If that were the case, then social workers and home health aides would earn more than options traders, NFT artists, and investment bankers.

There’s likely not a hard-working service industry employee in the country who earns as much as my brother does for working a few hours per day.

Nor are there very many who earn as much as I do while semi-working from home on any given Wednesday.

My brother-in-law (my wife’s brother, not my sister’s husband who falls squarely in the “working smarter” category and is knocking on the door of millionaire status, himself) is a good guy despite our opposing political views and I suppose that he is a hard worker, but he obviously will never earn very much working for a landscaping company in Wisconsin. If he starts his own business, the sky is the limit, but working for others at only $16.50 per hour is obviously no way to build wealth.

None of the four, myself included, are actually lazy. You are not lazy either.

I am sure that if you could earn more and generally become more successful while spending fewer hours and less energy working, you would.

There may be a way for you to do that or perhaps even a number of ways, or there may not.

The Internet and this particular site are replete with people doling out advice on “How to make $2,000 while you sleep” or “How to Make a Million Dollars with a $5,000 investment.” If I had even one dollar for every video that I have watched and every story or blog post that I have read with a title like that, I would have several thousand more dollars than I do now.

Even by you reading this far in this story, I may collect a bit of coin, but not bitcoin, for the trouble of writing it. Sweeter yet is if you read it in future months or years from when I type the words (late January 2022), helping me collect some of that sweet, sweet passive income.

Writing this or anything is not a passive activity, mind you. It is taking a couple of hours of my time. But once it’s published, it will become one of the hundreds of potentially income-producing things that I have written.

Which is not meant to brag, but to prove a point.

Should this story earn $16.50 though its life, that would equate to roughly the equivalent of one hour of physical work done by the First Man, thirty percent of an hour’s worth of income that the Second Man (me) collects at his full-time job, and less than two minutes worth of time billed by the Third Man, my younger brother.

It would be harder to estimate what that amount would equate to for the creative woman who is more of an online acquaintance than someone I know well.

For purposes of this story, let’s assume that she spends five hours creating a collage that sells for 0.2 ETH, or the equivalent of $660 USD as of this writing. If you want to put an hourly rate on her efforts, it would come out to $132 per hour, or nearly nine times as high as my brother-in-law's and over twice as high as myself.

So How Can You Be Lazier?

From a purely financial standpoint, your most valuable asset is not your education, your job, your house, or your investment portfolio.

It’s that three-pound organ between your ears.

The value that you place on your creative mind should be at least a million dollars.

Why?

Because you can use that organ to generate many times that amount over your lifetime.

That’s the thing that makes me believe, even as a middle-aged man, that I can become a millionaire and you are likely younger than I am, thus having more time to flex that brain of yours.

Becoming more creative, whether it’s writing stories like this, creating digital art, staking cryptocurrency, selling affiliate products, or literally creating things with your hands will help you not only survive but your chances of profiting from it can increase exponentially.

Even as you are just starting on the path of generating additional income through your brainpower and creativity, the more prosperous you will begin feeling. Your confidence will grow that you can generate a lot more wealth for yourself without having to work super hard for it.

So, no, I am not advocating that you and I become the lazy type of person who roots his or her butt on the couch while binge-watching Netflix and consuming junk food.

I’m praising the good kind of lazy. The kind where you come up with some technique or multiple techniques that you can easily replicate, like my brother writing his thousandth response to a summary judgment, rather than plowing people’s driveways in the cold and the dark as my wife’s brother does.

Whether your skills lie in writing, producing videos, creating physical products, graphic design, minting NFTs, or whatever, consider this just one more friendly reminder that many times it pays better to be lazy than to be a “hard worker.”