Motivation

It is important to intersperse intake with output in order for the learning process to work well. We learn by doing, which is why practice and exercise are so critical. Maybe that's why I'm not doing so well in grad school -- there's no assignments. I just read, and not only does there seem no point to much of the reading, I find that when I try to read I can't keep at it for very long. Then, when papers come, I cram for them -- and all of a sudden learn the material I was supposed to be learning throughout the semester. So maybe, if I took notes more often, or did some free-writes about the readings, I would do better. Some people also start their essays earlier: I would do well to do this. But how to start writing the essay before you know what you're even going to be writing about?

Second, I find it is almost always hard to get done what I need to get done -- especially when it's a "have-to." Discipline is hard for me, and even when there's not any real obstacles, I succumb to the vices of apathy and sloth. I need some way of turning my "have-tos" into "want-tos," and I am finding a few ways of doing that. The first way is to just stop and remind myself, "You know what? You don't have to do it. You really can do anything you want to do. Now what do you want to do?" Often, I will find that the thing I really want to do is precisely the thing I was avoiding doing. So at that point, the task turns from a "have-to" into a "want-to." Score!!

It's a question of finding what energizes you. Apathy is terrible for you. Without motivation, we can slug through all our to-dos, and get them done, and hate it: and then finally we can go back to what we wanted to be doing, which is ... wait ... what do we want to be doing? That's a good question. We've lost all desire to do much of anything except relax / watch TV / play games / eat, drink, and be merry. What a pathetic existence!! What happened to our drive? What happened to our ambition, our joys, our sense of adventure, our raison d'être? How can we reawaken that sense of humanity that has been lost? I think this is the reason some people have mid-life crises, why the late twenties are so frustrating for many people, and why so many people turn to art, music, poetry, religion, to give them a sense of direction; and why so many other people turn to drugs, sex, money, status, trying to forget that they've lost their sense of direction and imagine that they've made it already.

So, how do we pull ourselves out of this rut, and grab onto the excitement of life? You've got to find what does it for you. Once you figure out what excites and energizes and motivates you, remember what that is! Then keep doing it as often as you need to, to keep reminding yourself of what real life is and should be. So tell me, what makes you motivated?