The joy of duty: when you don't feel like it.

Sometimes the pace of life is sluggish and you just don't feel like it. 

Can you relate? 

In these times I guilt trip myself. As a a big feeler (like capital F in the ENFP), someone who confidently wears my feelings on my sleeve and feels relatively in touch with the day-to-day emotions a woman typically experiences, these times scare me. Apathy is not a regular thing. Yet as I get older, apathy pays me a visit more regularly and I have to choose what to do with it. 

Here's what I'm learning to do when I just don't feel like it. 

First, I examine. Apathy is usually a secondary emotion, a symptom of a greater issue that needs treating. What's happening in my heart, between me and the Lord, between me and my husband, between me and my other relationships? What's the state of my soul? Sometimes there is a festering wound, growing in dark solitude, untended to and in need of healing. Sometimes it's just an attitude adjustment. Do I need to seek resolution with someone? Confess sin? Maybe even just have a frank, truth-filled, kick-in-the-butt pep talk to get back on my feet? 

Next, I choose the joy that accompanies duty . Not feeling like it can manipulate you into believing that you are at the mercy of your emotions. Not true. You have more of an influence than you think. Sometimes apathy is present because a decision needs to be made in your heart. The decision to just be faithful with what's in front of you. 

Duty gets a bad rap. Our entitled culture communicates that we have the right to only do what we want when we feel like it. This is all well and good, some of my best work is done when I am passionately engulfed in what's in front of me. But sometimes I'm just not. It's time to dust off duty, reexamine its usefulness and employ it. Not because it's good to be fake, but because it's good to be committed. It's good to be faithful. Duty brings an uncommon joy- something different, rich and meaningful. It does something in my spirit. What's funny about duty is that when I choose it and the feelings aren't there, oftentimes the feelings come...later. But they do come. And my heart, the little entitled girl inside, starts to grow up. I am no longer dragged around by feelings, they start to yield to my decision to just be faithful. 

Don't give up on duty. Don't put too much stock in feelings. Life's a dance of juggling both. And next time you just don't feel like it, it's okay. You're not alone. Choose faithful and those feelings may follow.