How can you initiate work with a lazy instance of an object?

Lazy initialization means creating an object only at the moment of the first access to it. In Java, this can be done in several ways:

1. Using the Lazy Holder pattern:

public class MyClass {
    private static class LazyHolder {
        static final ExpensiveObject INSTANCE = new ExpensiveObject();
    }

    public static ExpensiveObject getInstance() {
        return LazyHolder.INSTANCE;
    }
}

2. Using Supplier or Optional with deferred initialization.

3. In Java 8+, you can use java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicReference with a check and creation of the object on the first call.

Example with Supplier:

Supplier<ExpensiveObject> lazy = () -> new ExpensiveObject();
ExpensiveObject obj = lazy.get(); // object is created here

Thus, working with a lazy instance begins with calling a method or function that creates the object upon the first access.