Procrastination and Laziness

Procrastination is to put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness, to postpone or delay needlessly. Lazy means resistant to work or exertion, disposed to idleness.The Oxford English Dictionary


“procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”
—Don Marquis, archy and mehitabel


Procrastination and laziness are soul taints rooted in indifference and lukewarmness. Excessive procrastination and laziness are sins rooted in selfish rebellion. The Medieval Church called this sloth. Today, we recognize procrastination and laziness as often being passive-aggressive behaviors.





Edna Lister on Procrastination and Laziness

Perseverance is the opposite of procrastination.—Edna Lister, The Science of Character Building: Positive and Negative Powers of Life, January 4, 1936.


Law is not lenient about dawdling or dalliance between Light and dark.—Edna Lister, July 10, 1941.


To engage in dalliance and dawdling is a waste of time.—Edna Lister, July 10, 1941.


Dawdling is a state of putting off and dreaming about the future. Dawdling is detouring, trying to escape destiny, sidestepping how you follow the directions contained within the law. Dalliance is procrastination, to trifle with law.—Edna Lister, July 17, 1942.


You are on your own time and vibration, to come or go, to be lukewarm or indifferent, or to dally and fail to apply the full law to your conduct of your life.—Edna Lister, November 25, 1942.


You must be ready to act on a thousand lines of Light at once. This is rigorous training, and you can go on or stop, take it or leave it, but don’t dawdle!—Edna Lister, July 9, 1945.


You cannot afford even one moment of lukewarmness, dawdling, indifference or lowered vibration of consciousness.—Edna Lister, July 3, 1947.


Law isn’t lenient about dawdling and dalliance between Light and dark. Law permits no dalliance, no point of modification, no 99%. You are either 100%, or on the bottom.—Edna Lister, October 12, 1947.


If it is a question of time, stop dawdling and wasting time.—Edna Lister, October 20, 1947.


The law of dalliance: Delays are created by individual or collective willfulness in dallying with the law on giving up self. The law of dalliance applies to all details in all things and in all ways, conscious or subconscious. The subconscious, the seat of self’s treachery, is the dilly-dallier.—Edna Lister, May 13, 1948.


When you dawdle, you lose your place in your class, and your rewards.—Edna Lister, June 25, 1951.


Dawdling and consorting with the little self causes you to forget to go to God first.—Edna Lister, Be-Attitudes, July 24, 1951.


Give up all dawdling and indifference. Replace your old ideas and patterns with new Christed age ideas.—Edna Lister, Atomic Energy and Creative Mind, September 30, 1952.


You must lift all habits of indolence, indifference and procrastination.—Edna Lister, Four Phases of the Word, February 1, 1955.


Dalliance does not turn back the clock of life. Time does not wait for anyone. Experience teaches that wasting time is foolish, for someday you will suffer a rude awakening.—Edna Lister, Eternal Youth, 1956.


Procrastination, dawdling, putting-off, laziness, indifference, lukewarmness, opinions, prejudices, resentment, and rebellion are like moths that nibble tiny holes in your fabric of life, right in front, where the world can see them.—Edna Lister, Spiritual Inventory, January 22, 1956.


Procrastination is an evasion of duty, repudiation of responsibility or acceptance of responsibility with a grudge. An evasion complex or an escape complex can upset the stomach. Your heart, lungs and stomach are on one pulse; you cannot evade responsibility without affecting the lungs and stomach.—Edna Lister, Metaphysical Correspondences, August 31, 1956.


Now is the time to stop dawdling and live a positive life.—Edna Lister, August 10, 1957.


"I’ll try" makes procrastination a false god.—Edna Lister, September 26, 1957.


Refusal of responsibility, procrastination, evasion of duty or an escape complex, running from life, all are the causes of stomach trouble.—Edna Lister, March 17, 1958.


God can send only as much Power as your squinched-up body can take, until you finally realize that you have played and dawdled your way through life to live in a wrinkled, old body.—Edna Lister, Realization, May 3, 1959.


You can permit no more excuses or self-aggrandizement, delays, dawdling or procrastination when you become the great law of responsibility.—Edna Lister, September 8, 1960.


Negative evidence of dawdling and playing with the Light is found in the tones of voice and the words spoken. The result is definite in excuses and self-explanations. Positive evidence is found in acceptance of law, "This is mine" to lift.—Edna Lister, June 28, 1964.


When you ask for a miracle or answer, you must act as if you have it and stand on that truth with no hesitation or procrastination.—Edna Lister, March 4, 1965.


People repudiate and procrastinate about new ideas. They put plans off without accepting or rejecting and say, "I’m not quite ready to do it yet," which causes delay. Procrastination puts it in limbo and they forget.—Edna Lister, September 8, 1966.


You cannot be too meticulous or rigid in self discipline with no blame, loitering or dawdling. Be alive and alert every moment, so that wherever you are, time and space shall be ready to meet and create perfection instantly.—Edna Lister, December 16, 1966.


Do not procrastinate, for it can and will delay your miracle.—Edna Lister, God Neither Slumbers Nor Sleeps, December 14, 1969.


Don’t dawdle or take on others’ debts by judgment and condemnation. If you see it, lift it.—Edna Lister, November 24, 1970.

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Old Testament Laws on Procrastination and Laziness

He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster.—Proverbs 18:9.


Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger.—Proverbs 19:15.


The desire of the slothful kills him; for his hands refuse to labor.—Proverbs 21:25.


The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason.—Proverbs 26:16.


The soul of the sluggard desires, and hath nothing.—Proverbs 13:4.

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Edna Miriam Lister
1884 – 1971
The original Pioneering Mystic,
Christian Platonist philosopher, American Idealist, Founder, Society of the Universal Living Christ, minister, teacher, author, wife, and mother.


Edna Lister


Etymology of procrastinate: Latin procrastinare, "forward to tomorrow."

Etymology of lazy: Uncertain, perhaps German lassig, meaning "weary, tired."


Procrastination and laziness are soul taints.

Excessive procrastination and laziness are sins.


Quotes

It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.—Leonardo da Vinci

My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.—Charles Dickens

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
—Abraham Lincoln

References

Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, 2024.

The Holy Bible. King James Version (KJV).

Marquis, Don, archy and mehitabel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012.

The Oxford English Dictionary: Compact Ed., 2 vols. E.S.C. Weiner, ed. Oxford University Press, 1971.