Expectations and Language

Is there a word for "not laziness"? It's not "industrious" as that word implies industry which implies production of some kind and people don't have to produce something to be "not lazy". Ditto for "productive" as most people don't produce much besides bullshit anyway. I guess it's something closer to "responsible" but I dislike that word because it comes with all the negative connotations. Who killed that midget? He's responsible. Who got that girl pregnant? I'm responsible. It's not a good word. I need a better word, something that I can better use to describe my expectations for an 8'th grader with the work ethic of his mother and the attention span of a clownfish on meth.