Essays

In more ways than one, I say yes to the above question. The motorcar was invented a while ago. Since then we have enjoyed the ease of travelling, unparalleled to any other civilization. We have also become immeasurably lazier. We drive the car everywhere, to work, to play; for a hundred miles, for a hundred metres. My brother who has a pot-belly does not believe in  walking at all—it is always the car, even to the corner grocery shop, a stone's throw away.

Many 'modern' people are like my brother, four wheels take over the job of two legs. Consequently, their whole physical condition suffer. They become overweight, under-exercised and prone to a multitude of ailments. The convenience of the motorcar has caused laziness which in turn is causing physical deterioration.

Besides physical laziness, modern gadgets have also led to mental laziness. This happened to a person known to me who works as clerk in my school. Previously, he used to do his accounts by making use of his brains alone. He could add, subtract, multiply, divide by simply using a pencil and a piece of paper. Then one day, the headmaster gave him a calculator. He was delighted that he could perform all the calculations by simply pressing some keys. He did not even have to think! Thus, his mental ability atrophied. He did not realize this until one day the calculator broke down. To his horror, he discovered that he had forgotten how to perform simple mathematical tasks. He was completely helpless and dependent. Such is the consequence of mental laziness. It took him years in school to learn how to count. It took him only weeks with the calculator to almost forget it all.

To further worsen this physical and mental laziness is the television, the so-called 'idiot box'. Many people, nowadays, simply sit right in front of their TV sets for long hours every evening. These people inevitably become victims of the little 'devil'. Their bodies suffer from lack of exercise and their minds become numbed by the constant onslaught of varied and useless information. When the television set is switched on, all eyes are on the screen. Nobody wants to engage in other more creative activities like conversing, reading or simply sharing time together. Everybody sits down night after night getting their heads tilled full of unnecessary things. Laziness reigns supreme. It. is only when the TV set breaks down or when there is a power failure that people realize they do not know what else to do.

There are many other inventions which also contribute to our laziness. Fast food joints mean that we do not need to bother to cook. Paper dishes and canned drinks mean that we do not even have to wash up after eating. We have washing machines, vacuum cleaners, elevators and other assorted gadgets to make our lives immeasurably easier and comfortable but infinitely lazier.

There are signs that many new inventions will completely seize our lives soon to take over most of our daily chores. Already, there are robots and electronic machines capable of doing a variety of 'ordered' tasks. Maybe the day will arrive when almost everything will be done for us and we will be left with a lot of free time to just Laze around and make our lives more miserable.