Sloth (Latin, acedia)- noun- habitual disinclination to exertion; indolence; laziness.
Not many people would believe that before Dunder Mifflin, Jim Halpert wasn't really one for pranks. He enjoyed a laugh every now and then, yeah, and he'd taken part in his fair share of stupid shit in college, but you could blame most of that on the booze. As a general rule, though, Jim enjoyed cracking jokes more than he did the extensive planning that goes into a good prank. He had appreciation for the greats, but he was more of a watcher than a doer.
That was before Dunder Mifflin.
Jim liked to think of his pranks as less of a waste of company time and more of a way to stay sane when you have Dwight K. Schrute for a deskmate. It was a way a combat the deathly boredom that was his job as a salesman at a failing mid-range paper company in a geographically insignificant town. It was his coping mechanism. Sometimes people chalked that up to some character trait, defiance or laziness or whatever, and Jim totally agreed. And everyone knows that Jim Halpert only does that under three conditions- because it irritates Dwight, because Pam said it, or because there's something more he's not ready to admit. When Jim really thinks about the motivation behind his laziness at work, it all comes down to one thing.
Her laugh.
He thinks it's surprising (and a lack of basic self-preservation) that he'd risk his job stability for something like that, but there it is. Every prank he's ever come up with has been designed with the ultimate goal in mind to make Pam Beesley laugh. He knows how much she loves the feel that she's rebelling against something (he wishes it could be her fiancé, and maybe this is a dream deferred) and so he includes her in the planning whenever possible. They dream and scheme and he knows he's just buying time, but he'll pay whatever is necessary to get it, and then they execute this master work they've made together. And she laughs the way he loves, the laugh he's never heard from her around Roy, the one where she throws her head back and her whole face just shines and she's so damn beautiful he can hardly even stand it. It's like the best and worst thing to ever happen to him, because he loves her and he wants her to be happy and at the same time he loves her and he wants her to love him too, and when she laughs he's convinced she does. It plants that renegade seed of hope in him that drives him to a confession in some dark parking lot (and it reminds him of the confessions he used to make as a kid at church, but she's no priest and he's not sorry) and she's not laughing and neither is he.
He moves to Stanford and his first (and only) prank falls flat, because who knew Andy had such anger management issues? And in his heart he knows it's no good because she's not there- there's no motivation for him other than precedence- and so he decides that if this is really going to be his job, he better get serious about it. And he's still a salesman at a failing mid-range paper company, but the town is a little closer to being geographically significant and he needs to convince himself he's got something going for him. And then there's Karen, who's smart and beautiful and ambitious, and he thinks that maybe if he borrows that ambition for a little bit he can pull himself together and be someone other than Jim Halpert, Master of Pranks and Jello Encasing.
Then all of a sudden he's back at Scranton, and Pam greets him at the door and she's a million times more beautiful than he's been trying not to remember but has been dreaming about anyway. She's looking at him like she's expecting something and he knows that if he hears her laugh, this entire attempt at recovery will be lost to the sound of it, so he makes no jokes all day besides the quiet ones to Karen (who laughs, but it's not the same and he thinks it might be a formality) and he's secretly grateful that Ryan won't give him his desk back because then at least he won't be able to see her disappointment.
But after a few days that feel more like years, they pull their first prank together since his return. He hears Pam Beesley laugh, and Jim Halpert knows he is hopelessly undone.