I’ve never been able to make myself try harder or work harder than is absolutely necessary at anything.

Because I’ve never had to.

Plenty of times I should have, but few times when it has taken a maximum effort to succeed. Most forms of success have come to me quite easily.

Hell, even VFS’ “intensive” one year Writing for Movies and Television barely taxed me, and even then, only in the last semester.

And there were many times, especially in early elementary and late high school, when teachers told me how much better I could be doing if I only “applied” myself.

But my point of view is if I could great marks with zero effort, why go for super duper deluxe marks when the difference is small and the increase in effort is great?

I mean, that’s technically an increase of infinity percent! ^[1]

Of course, I now know why I should have tried harder : scholarships! And the awards and accolades and hopefully impressing people who could help me get ahead that could have lead to said scholarships would have been nice too.

But I was too young and naïve to even think about scholarships, let alone try harder because I wanted them.

After all, my parents had told me that they would pay for college, and so I considered that matter settled.

Never in my life had I been expected to do all I can to make things easier for my parents. My older siblings apparently got that memo but I did not.

My job was to stay out of the way, remember? So I did.

If someone had told me that it would be a big help to my parents if I tried to get the best grades I could so I could get scholarships one day, I would have done it.

But nobody ever expected anything of me.

Because I didn’t officially even exist, remember?

And it’s not like my graduating from school and needing my university paid for should have come as a surprise to them. They had my whole life to save up for my uni and they knew exactly when they would need it, and yet they did nothing.

Why? Because they were so very fond of forgetting that I exist. And silly lil me, I did my best to stop existing.

That’s why I am so damned Avoidant.

On my own and without this information, I did attempt to try harder a few times. Tried to be more like my overachieving sister Catherine.

But I am just plain not built that way. When I tried to focus and strive I became so riddled with anxiety and fear and tension that I couldn’t function.

The transformation was too much for me. It would have taken changing my entire approach to life. And for what, to go from being a A student to an A+ student?

Fuck that noise.

Ironically, I would have done better if I could have thought of it more selfishly. If I had thought of it in terms of proving to the world how amazing I am and gathering praise, applause, and the occasional cash reward for it, that might have motivated me and given me what I needed to overcome the anxiety and kick scholastic ass.

But back then I didn’t think that way. At all.

I’m still open to the idea of trying it now, though.

I could be an academic superstar with colleges wooing me all over the world.

But that sounds a lot like, ya know, hard work.

And as you know, I have never been able to force myself to work harder than I absolutely had to.

And I never had to.

More after the break.

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Lazy and self-indulgent

That’s how I am feeling right now. It’s 10:30 PM and I am just getting around to eating supper and I am feeling too lazy to even go to the kitchen and back so I am just eating the stuff I have here in the bedroom with me.

Which now includes a new treat. I made an Amazon order yesterday, getting Felicity’s gift plus some “body wipes” for myself.

They gave me body wipes when I was in the hospital last August in lieu of a shower, which I was not capable of, or a sponge bath, which I was eager to avoid as they seemed rather awkward.

So the wipes were a great solution. They’re kind of amazing, really, because you can clean your whole body with them, including hair, and you don’t even have to rinse off after. The stuff just evaporates.

I am hoping the “new toy” factor will encourage me to “bathe” a lot more often. They work better than a sponge bath too.

Don’t worry, that’s not the treat. I am not erotically attached to them (yet).

As I often do, I finished my Amazon shopping spree by checking what they have in terms of sugar free goodies so I can treat myself.

After scrolling through pages of stuff I don’t care about (powdered peanut butter?? )I came across a big bag of sugar free fruit flavoured gummies by a Dutch company called Frisia and I had to give them a shot.

Well they arrived today and they are nummy. Exactly the kind of thing I wanted to find, So I am happy bout that.

$20 bought me a throw pillow sized bag of 1000 of the delicious little darlings (two cents each, not bad) and the only bad part is that I now have to restrain myself from eating myself sick with them.

I can do this. I am strong.

I looked up this Frisia company and it seems like they sell a ton of products, and at the very least all the gummi ones are all sugar free.

They might just get a lot of my money if I can find online dealers in their goods who charge a reasonable price.

I will feel better once the gummies I bought today are safely stored in one of our old peanut butter jars that have been cleaned out so we can use them for storage.

Right now they are just too damned tempting for my own good.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

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good day sunshine