Overcoming Lazy

If I had to choose one trait of mine that stands most in the way of becoming the boy I want to be, it would be my laziness. When I'm given the option, I naturally tend to slack off, to watch TV, or go online, or play games, anything other than the tasks I am meant to do.

And this isn't a new realisation, either. Daddy has spent a lot of time and effort trying to train me, to make me a good, conscientious boy who gets his chores done, but no matter what he tries, nothing seems to stick. Worse, while I am well aware that I need a harsh taskmaster to keep me in line, pushing me out of my lazing activities makes me grumpy and unhappy, so the taskmaster role is a thankless task around me. Even if I tell my taskmaster that this is what I need, I balk at being told what to do. And this is a problem for my Daddy, who, like many Daddies, is a kind soul at heart. He has no problem being harsh to his charges, but he's not a cruel man, and gets nothing out of being harsh if the charge gets nothing out of it. In short, he'll be the kind of taskmaster we like.

And this is a problem with me. Because the taskmaster I want is the taskmaster I dislike.

And Daddy doesn't really get this. He's not used to dealing with someone who actively fights their own development, like me. It's not that I want to fight, but the behaviours I want to discard are so ingrained that I fight them purely out of habit. I dislike anything that's not familiar, it feels like a threat, which you can understand makes me my own worst enemy when it comes to self-improvement, even when I know that it's necessary. To Daddy, it seems like I'm telling him one thing and then acting completely contrary, which to be honest is completely accurate. It's just that I am genuinely acting contrary - I am acting out against the things that I know are good for me, purely because the things that are good for me are not things I do by default.

This week me and Daddy looked at the issue again, because this situation is just completely out of Daddy's ken. Daddy takes self-improvement in his stride, because when he identifies an issue, he can devote himself to rectifying the issue, as opposed to me who's always having to fight the desire for familiarity. To him, word and action match, and when they don't match, it's usually because the word is inaccurate. So, he works to my actions, which is great for my comfort levels, but terrible for my self-development. I had to describe it to him as "I want to want to do things - I aspire to be the kind of sub who does things without prompting, but I block myself every time".

So, once I'd gotten that out, we came upon a possible way of making sure we both get what we need. Daddy will work at being harsh with me, by reminding me at each step that this is what I want. In short, to try and break the comfortable familiarity by directly appealing to my aspirations. And in return, I will make sure that Daddy is always reminded by me that I'm grateful for Daddy taking this thankless task, and thanking him for it whenever I can.

I really hope this works.

Boy Improvement

I recently posted about how I'm trying to treat my submission as a challenge,  to engage my competitiveness to become a better Boy. I'm starting to take small steps in that direction, and one step that's seemed pressing recently is my attention span.

In a lot of ways it's been a major obstacle to me being better, not least of which because of how often I "drop" orders. For a lot of people, the problem isn't so pressing, because if they haven't paid attention to orders, it's easy to tell. But because of my job as a call centre worker, and because of my family and romantic history,  I've become extremely good at making acknowledgement cues, even if my brain hasn't actually processed the request. Worse, it's nearly automatic - I often don't realised I'm doing it until someone (often Daddy) knocks me out of whatever thought process I was on.

It's been incredibly frustrating for Daddy, and I'll freely admit I haven't been doing a lot of work on fixing the problem on my end. So, this morning, I decided to work on improving my mental workspace,  and I found a website called Lumosity. It's a website that engages you with games that practice specific mental skills - including attention and global perception,  two skills that I really need to improve more on.

I know this isn't a cure all - there's still plenty to be done with working to stay in the present, which is a big component of my lack of attention. But, improving my mental skills can only help, I think.