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3 Min Read

How Devon Price Redefined ‘Lazy’ and Turned His Medium Essay Into a Book

An interview with the author of “Laziness Does Not Exist,” the essay that started a conversation about the psychology of procrastination

When we say people are “disappointing” us, or they’re “not trying hard enough,” or they don’t “have what it takes to succeed,” we’re being so incurious about their life circumstances. How dare we, as educators, just write people off like that?

So that day, for whatever reason, I decided to try to tackle the idea in writing. And after years of thinking about it, it was ready to come out, and I wrote the essay in a couple hours. Getting it out felt powerful and cathartic. It came out in one go after years of reflecting and having these conversations. I felt pretty confident about it right from the jump, and I think I published it that same day.

My philosophy with creativity has for the most part been: Just show up and do the work you think is worth doing. The more you do that, the more opportunities you create for lightning to strike.

Personally, I just want to keep growing as a writer. That’s what I was always more interested in — growing intellectually, and in the breadth of my ideas, rather than thinking, Oh, I need another viral story.

Medium is a great place to start sharing your own stories and opinions. It’s fine to fail and muddle around in that sandbox.

I think people self-censor a lot. They tell themselves, “I’m not the person to tell this story,” or “I’m not good enough to stake my opinion in the sand,” or whatever. I think that’s the biggest barrier to growing as a creative person. And Medium is a great place to start sharing your own stories and opinions. It’s fine to fail and muddle around in that sandbox. That’s really the only way to get good at expressing yourself — by, you know, muddling through.

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