House Natasha

my Lady asked that I write Her a private entry, and so I wasn’t sure I’d be posting anything publically for today. Ami and I had a wonderful conversation tonight, and it got me thinking about something I could write a public entry about. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and I’m thankful to my Lady for the task She’s given me that I write in this journal every day. I never considered it a burden, and I’m not sure if others would or not. It was simply a task, and a relatively simple task at that… to write about my day; about my thoughts and feelings.

Tasks are only as difficult as we make them. A task is just a task. When you have to perform a task, regardless of who it’s for, or why it’s been given, you should take pride in that task and do your absolute best. Tasks aren’t unbearable, but rather our sense of the task and our understanding of its purpose cause us to believe a task may be unbearable. In effect, we choose to make a task unbearable by telling ourselves that it is so.

Now, I’m not saying all tasks can be accomplished by everyone, or even that all tasks can be accomplished at all. What I’m focusing on is the effort you put into attempting a task. All tasks are a learning experience. If you are unable to accomplish a task because it’s not possible for you, but you try your best, and actually put effort into it, you can learn a great deal. You can learn your limits. You can learn how not to approach a task, or how to approach the task so that you can complete portions of it.

There’s an example of a task that I’d like to present here. Some time back I got into Japanese cooking. I loved everything about it, except for one thing. This one thing I hated. It may sound silly to anyone who’s never done it, as it really rates pretty low on tasks to hate if you think about it. The task is washing rice.

You put the rice in a bowl, and add some cold water. You then knead handfuls of the rice. The water turns milky, at which point you drain the water without losing the rice, and repeat. You repeat until the water remains clear. Not a difficult task on the surface and it’s done all over the world every day by countless people. The purpose is to get rid of the starch, and the result is when you cook it, you get wonderfully delicious rice. To an amateur though, this task takes awhile, and sometimes it seems like you’ll never get to the point where the water remains clear.

The first few times I performed this task, I couldn’t wait for it to be over. The water was cold and because of how long it took, my fingers would get cold and my back would begin to ache from standing there repeating this process over and over. In time however, I actually came to truly love doing this. I would throw myself into the task, and it became like a meditation. It still took time, but I learned how to accomplish the task, and because I was involved and dedicated to the task, the time passed more quickly.

Dominants assign tasks for various reasons. You may know why these tasks have been given, but you might just think you know. If you assume you’re being punished, there’s a chance you’re not going to accomplish the task as well as you might if you assume that the same task is given to show off your ability. This is why how you approach the task is important. You must give yourself over to the task. If you can purely perform the task for the sake of the task, without assumption while putting forth your best effort, you will accomplish the task to the best of your ability. You might also just find something special hidden in the details of performing the task, and learn something.