Duty

I'm feeling very smug and dutiful right now. Today, I completed one, two, three, four, five tasks, not all of which I was looking forward to, and made my own coffee instead of going out, to boot! I went to church (yeah, yeah, I know, it shouldn't feel like a duty, but still, it does), called my mother, went for a walk, mended fences with a classmate, and called Roommate's Finacee. Not that I Mind doing all these things, in fact, while doing them, they were all a pleasure, but getting up the umph was a bit hard, and now that I've done them, I feel like a very good girl indeed.
And I don't think this is a very good thing. I feel horrible, feeling like God and my friends are duties. But really, without a sense of duty, I don't think I'd have any relationships. It takes that dutiful sense to get over the stomach-turning hump of dialing the phone. (Yes, I really do hate it that much, my stomach really does turn.) In fact, there is probably only one person in the world I would call right now without some sense of duty, but I don't call him, because I'm not sure he really wants me to call. So, I sit here, not calling, imagining conversations in my head in which I am brilliant and witty, telling him all the little jokes and details of my life that I always forget or feel too stupid to say when I'm actually on the phone.
It's funny because, while a sense of duty does help me maintain friendships, no matter how dutiful I am, I can do nothing to help or change the things that really need helping and changing. I can pray until my knees are red, so dutiful!, but it seems to be of no avail for my father, who hasn't had a real job in Six Years. I can talk about marriage counseling till I'm blue in the face, but it doesn't mean my parents' marriage will get any better. I can nod in silent commiseration when a friend tells me she's been contemplating suicide, but no ammount of sympathy can keep her from actually going through with it.
So, I'll just do my duty, pray like hell, and hope someday, something finally happens.