I try to be more ambitious than lazy. But I'm fine with lazing around on days that I don't feel like I can do anything.
I figure that I'm more likely to regret being lazy than being ambitious. Its probably easier to get lots of utility, then be lazy than to be lazy and somehow amass a lot of utility.
I'd like a positive singularity to occur in my lifetime, or for medicine to advance to the point that I get to live that long. I think I might be able to do some stuff to make that more likely, but in the meantime I'm trying to figure out how to do that, and build skills so that when I know how to, I'll be able to carry it out.
At today's meetup in Tortuga, we were supposed to discuss something we're currently being irrational about. In retrospect I could probably have done better than the item I picked (for example, it now occurs to me that I'm probably currently being irrational about bedtimes and sleep-cycle stuff)...
But the key point is that while straining my brain to think of something I was currently being irrational about, but hadn't fixed yet, I noticed myself being irrational in small ways too.
For example, I was sitting on the floor in a way that was beginning to strain my left thigh, but wasn't standing up and finding a chair...
So I stood up and found a chair.
I think it might be a valuable exercise to spend an hour practicing rationalist mindfulness, constantly asking yourself, "What am I currently doing that is not rational?" as though you had to find something to fulfill your obligation to an LW meetup.