| motivation Motivation is a fickle thing. Sometimes you have it, and the world seems to be yours for the taking. Sometimes you don't and even the most rote physical activity seems pointless. When you realize just how important and beneficial motivation is to your individual future it can be disheartening to find out you lack it. It can also be difficult to consciously search it out, to find something which will give you what you are missing. Most often it is a thing which returns when you are not looking, something that is defined by so many possible sources that you can't tell which one proved the deciding factor. And because of this, when you search for it you most often search in vain. I find that the coming and going of motivation is prevalent in high degrees in those around me. Maybe it is due to my age group (20-25), or maybe it is that a major epoch of life in those around me and myself is about to be reached, and decisions which need to be made require motivation, or alternatively it simply that it affects us all. Regardless of whom this fluctuation of motivation occurs to most, it is relevant to all because it controls the ease, frequency, and level of our accomplishments. To live without it is to not achieve your fullest potential. What causes this motivation? As I said earlier, it can be caused by many different factors, and each individual may weight those factors differently. Some are intensely motivated by a desire to be the best, some want to please their parents, some try to achieve great wealth, others simply need to be recognized. We are all different, and because of this our conception of what would be the perfect realization of ourselves is different. I propose that this perfect realization of ourselves is what motivation is meant to achieve. I would say that we all hold within us some image of what we wished we would be, and that this image and our pursuit to make it reality is what motivation truly is. This image of ourselves can change over time and with it our motivations may change. It is when we lack a strong image of what we wish for ourselves that we also lack motivation. We have no goal or only weak ones and our motivation is at a low point. How do we determine this image of ourselves? From our pasts we have memories of how we receive recognition, whether it is by looking attractive, acting intelligent, being athletic, having money, or countless other things. We have also seen others whom we respect or admire, whether completely or simply certain aspects of them, and from these people we can cut and paste attributes to our perfect image. So with an always changing image we continue to better understand what it is we desire to become, and the more reinforcement that image receives by |