This book is not about laziness in its classic or traditional form, but in its wider sense. Monks used the word acedia, or ‘inner disintegration’, which can manifest itself in indolence and inactivity in one person, or frantic activity, a total lack of focus, and fragmentation of the inner energy of the heart in another. The word applies, therefore, not only to those who do too little – or nothing at all – but also to those who do too much, driven along by anything but the spirit of God