The Interplay from Joy to Responsibility

I've been real busy the past week or so--and for the next week or so. Like today, I left home early, waking Ruki up before 8 a.m. and leaving by 8.40 a.m. And I got back late, a bit after 1 p.m. My plan was to try and make it to work by 2 - 2.15 p.m. That left me about half an hour with the Monsterface.

I love playing with Ruki. She's a joy and a pleasure. It's fun taking her for walks, or to the park to play. But this isn't all the time. Today, it was a responsibility. I admit, that it was fun, but that wasn't the main purpose. The main purpose is that she needs exercise, she needs some discipline--we did some training, and then she needs some time with me.

The key point here is my motivation. If my motivation was my own joy--which also comes from Ruki's joy, then, sure, I received joy. But joy is inconstant and joy has many methods of fulfillment and denial. On the other hand, responsibility has a framework. With discipline, it is constant and the inputs and outputs are predictable.

I think that the prime motivation should be responsibility. And then try to attain joy in every moment of that responsibility. That way it's about Ruki, and not about me. And in the end I think that a puppy trained and structured through responsibility will be better able to deal with life than one that tries to adjust to and figure out how you can be motivated through joy.

Right now, she's just chilling out, laying down, chewing on a toy nearby. My joy might be to play with her. Right now, the joy would be forced because I want to write this and it might not be so fun. My responsibility might be to play with her. Right now, I think my responsibility is to make sure I'm here, just around, with Ruki nearby, and so that's what I'll do.