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| these toes were made for tapping in frustration |
Move the books!
Tidy your room!
Take out the recycling!
Don't forget to x, y, z and then back to abc again ..."
and so on.
Picking Domestic Project Manager for myself was not something on my list way back in those "heady" days of new relationship bliss.
But it happened anyway.
Why does it take oversight and a bucketful of nagging to get anything done around here, I wondered to myself.
How do I motivate my housemates into picking up some slack? into thinking domestically so we can all benefit?
Motivation is key to most human endeavour - it gives the goal, spurs us on, makes achieving something pleasurable ... at least, that's what I thought. But I could not pin it down for mr ebb or the Wee Guy. What makes them do something, anything?
I thought, deep and long.
Well ... it isn't pleasure at getting a task completed.
It isn't the pride in doing something or improving.
It has very little to do with other people.
It's nothing to do with the thrill of new experiences.
Both of them are lucky souls - quite happy to exist in the moment, despite surroundings, mess, hunger, the potential for improvement, another's displeasure, inconvenience ... seemingly unmotivated until some hidden urge is tapped. In some ways, I'm quite envious but I'm also fed up with being the Domestic Project Manager. And I couldn't cope with living in squalor or never going anywhere.
And then I remembered - the only thing that will get these two off their butts and into action is a serious threat to their own personal comfort.
For example, the Wee Guy will clean his room if threatened with the contents leaving the house in a garbage bag.
An electronics ban (prolonged) brings out compliance.
mr ebb only made efforts to deal with some fairly reasonable requests when I threatened to leave him home alone with the Wee Guy for a month, when I refused to play Mirena-roulette at the end of its reliable lifespan (woohoo Dr. Pollock!) and yes, when I mentioned the D word.
Yes, that.
So OK, I've used up all my motivational angles.
What next?
Should I just accept that it just matters to me, and get the hell on with my life regardless?
