“Am I in trouble Sir?”
“You need to stop asking that question. I will let you know if you are in trouble. If you are focused on that you’re focused on the wrong thing.”
Um… oh.
That was the conversation we had this morning. I’m really not even sure how to respond to it. I have a feeling he thinks I am in a different place than I am. See, the reason I always ask if I am in trouble isn’t because I focus on punishment, or that I’m trying to do the minimum to avoid getting in trouble. I realize that part of being a slave is failing at times and that my focus should be on serving him the best I can rather than avoiding punishment.
So why do I ask, then? Well, because I need more processing time than he does.
If I’ve made a mistake that I’m not in trouble for, I have plenty of time to go through it in my head and try to correct it. If I am in trouble that isn’t the case. I have to be in the right frame of mind by the time he is ready to punish me. Actually, that’s not true. I’m not sure he cares much what frame of mind I am in when he punishes me, but I don’t think it is as effective or productive if I’m in a bad place.
My Owner says that the point of punishment is to correct any behavior that he doesn’t like. That’s all well and good, and I think it is probably the point for him. It doesn’t really get to the point for me, though. The reason for this is two fold. First: I’m very hard on myself. If he tells me I’ve done something wrong he doesn’t need to punish me in order to get me to make changes. Second: punishment itself doesn’t correct anything. It does sometimes serve to reinforce a correction already made, but without that in place the punishment teaches me nothing.
That’s why I still have to do the mental work. I have to come to a point where I can make the punishment valuable. I can’t do that nearly as effectively if it is sprung on me without warning. So, I ask. But, he’s just told me to stop asking. So, I don’t ask?
If I don’t ask, how do I make sure that I stay in a place where being in trouble serves it’s purpose? I’m not sure. We have our scheduled talk tomorrow, so maybe he has some ideas. I really want to explain myself to him. I already started to, although I cut myself off well before I wanted to. I suppose that’s why I’m writing this, to get the explaining bug out of my system so I can stop bothering him with it.
This is really going to take some working out. I’ll be sure to report back if I have any light bulb moments. I’d love to hear thoughts from you all, though. My guess is you might have better ideas than me. And by the way, I still have no idea if I’m in trouble for the issue I was asking about. I guess I get to wait and see!
