Get Your Duties Accomplished

Here's an entry in the "Drive for Pride" file:

Get your duties accomplished. Live as a person who takes your responsibilities seriously. Do them, point by point, and do them well. Then lean back and feel proud, proud that what should be done is done.

I get up in the morning and think of what needs to be done. Sometimes I forget something but not very often. Then I step through it -- even sometimes doing the harder or less savory tasks first. As I get the things accomplished I feel pretty good about it and myself. Success seems to build on itself.

Who are some of the people who really stick out in your memory as sour apples? If you're like me, it's the ones you can't depend on to be on time, to be prepared, in general, to be responsible. I don't know how people live like that, I really don't. We're expecting you to be ready but you're not.

If you're an employer and that happens, you have some leverage. If you're just a friend or a coworker (at a certain level), you sometimes have to sugarcoat it. It'd be nice to really be able to speak your mind freely sometimes, like chewing them out and dressing them down like a drill sergeant. But no...mustn't let your true feelings slip out.

I'm not thinking of any particular incidences actually, I just know how it goes in the normal give and take of society. 'T would be a pity to dress someone down. You might bruise their poor ego. Stunt their mental growth (as though it's not already seriously stunted, by inactivity, lack of vigor, a poor self attitude, the constant sloughing off, and a look of ignorance that masquerades as dreamy indifference.) But hey ... I'm willing to pull back.

As for me, I was brought up to have some personal sense, some care for my presentation and accomplishments. So you'll see me bounding out of bed everyday at 5:30 a.m. I'll be making a list of things to do. I'll have my appointments in my phone with an hour's notice (the alarm) beforehand. Then I'll be constantly thinking of how I will do what must be done, and I will do it well.

Others apparently didn't have that upbringing. Must have been lost in the woods and raised by a family of sloths. Their whole attitude is so lackadaisical that you should check them for bedsores. A pile of driftwood has more spunk. You'd need a refinery to start a fire under them. Something's zapped their senses.

So, in conclusion, if you want to be a person that we'd like to have around, keep track of your life and responsibilities, and get your duties accomplished.