Mom saved my day today. Our 14-year-old retriever, Charlie, had dripped diarrhea around a large area of floor, making a huge mess. Of course it was my job to clean it up because, unlike anyone else in my immediate family, my back is just fine and I can bend down very easily. My mother encouraged me to put in the time to clean up the mess before breakfast, and I'm so glad I did. And, left to my own devices, I almost certainly would not have done that. Left to my own volition, I don't know how it would ever have gotten cleaned up!
And then there was gardening. I was unusually groggy this afternoon, even contemplating taking a nap, when my mother insisted I start my gardening chores. I don't get to garden every day so I was able to remark on my experience gardening today. Literally hundreds of generations of human beings have banked their time gardening, so it's little wonder that this activity soothed the anxiety that can accompany other pursuits -- the anxiety borne of fear that the moments are somehow not being put to their best use. I had a pretty good day because I was able to borrow volition from my mother. And that is how humans have handled things for hundreds of generations -- borrowing one another's volition.
Don't get me wrong. I think that in general duress is a bad thing. But this encouragement I enjoyed today stopped short of being duress. And whatever it was, it worked out well for me in this case.
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