There is a special woman who introduced me to my wife. And although she has been involved in both our lives, I always referred to her as ”my wife’s best friend”. I always thought it strange to think of her as anything else. Even though I have always considered her a friend, this will be the first time I publicly state that I consider her one of MY closest friends. She holds a special place in my heart and if I prayed, she would be in them every night. That being said, she wrote a wonderful post on her website, MyriamTheGreat.com. Found HERE. And it inspired me to write the following post.
She speaks of motivation. And challenges everyone to get motivated and not merely for physical improvement. Hers is a message of motivation in general. She is the type of woman who will encourage you to enrich your life in ALL aspects. And in reading it, I found myself inspired to write about my own motivation. I have NONE. It’s sad, but it’s true. I consider myself to be a fairly modest man, which in itself is a bit of a contradiction. But I can sheepishly admit that I am a smart guy. I do believe that if I had set my sights on something, I could have achieved it. And I do mean anything. My curse is apathy. If you looked up the word in the dictionary, I wouldn’t be there. Instead, the person whose picture WAS there, would pray to me every night. That’s how bad I am. But it got me to thinking of something I told my wife and a couple other people over the years. And I use it as motivation for others to set goals and strive to achieve them. My wife had a very long and difficult journey in acquiring her teaching degree. It took more than the usual 4 years, due to financial problems and some self-doubt. Even getting a job as a teacher has managed to elude her up until now. But she has not stopped trying. She’s needed a little push now and then, but she’s kept at it. And the thing I told her was this.
I, that have no goals or motivation, think it is a waste for people to have dreams sometimes. I hear people whine about how hard it is to get where they want to go. How they don’t have time. They can’t afford it. It takes too long. It’s too hard. I would KILL to know what I wanted to do with my life. I have had thoughts here and there about being a doctor, a lawyer, a Marine, a cop, a computer specialist, etc. But I have never felt that any of those were my true calling. But if I did ever find my calling, not Heaven nor Earth, nor Hell could stop me from achieving it. And when I see people who claim that they know what they want to do with their lives, and find reasons to not do it, it disgusts me. Give me your calling in life and I will not only get there faster than most, I will be one of the best at it. Even if your dream is made fun of by others or thought of as too simple, never let anyone or anything get in your way of what you want to do. If you want to make colorful curtains for blind people… then in the name of Holy Hal and his hovering hoolahoop, you be the best damn curtain maker this world has ever seen. I want to hear about how your curtain designs were so awe-inspiring that God Himself came down from Heaven to shake your hand. I know I’m getting a little silly, but that’s just me. Seriously though, do NOT let anything stop you. Do me and yourself a favor. Even if you don’t like the movie, go back and watch Fight Club. If you can’t sit through the whole movie, fast forward to the part where they go into the convenience store with a gun. That scene is the encapsulation of what I am trying to say here. Seriously, watch it.
I am 33 years old and haven’t done much with my life. But I promise you that when my calling comes, I will get there. And I will be one of the best, if not THE best, at it. A wasted life due to lack of a dream is bad enough, but a wasted life due to lack of motivation is inexcusable.
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AC
P.S.
And if anyone wants to get smarty pants with me… No, I was not motivated to write this. As I said in the beginning, I was “inspired”. Inspiration is defined as, “a product of your creative thinking and work”. Motivation on the other hand is defined as, “the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal”. I’d like to say that writing this was a goal, but really it was me curing boredom. I kid. It was me getting on a soapbox and hoping I can inspire or motivate someone else. Who knows, maybe that’ll be my calling. ;)
