Motivation

If you ever want to make fun of actors all you do is walk up to someone and say in as serious a voice as you can muster (plus a British accent helps) "What's my motivation?"

I have recently taken to thinking quite often to myself (in a British accent) "Where's my motivation?" I know What my motivation is. It's that I'm a young newlywed trying to get decent grades and work in a job so that I can support my family now and in the future. I know exactly what my motivation is. I just seem to have misplaced it.

The other day I got up at 6:00 a.m. to finish some Spanish homework that I'd left off the night before because I'd simply been too exhausted for rational thought. Sounds motivated right, getting up early, rising against the forces of gravity and momentum in order actually get oneself out of bed and start the day.

Well, I did those things. I was motivated. Then I sat on the couch with my laptop open on my lap for two hours staring at the Spanish homework on the screen. NOTE: I was not perusing facebook, or other things. I was simply sitting and staring. This seems to be happening to me quite often as of late. I find it distressing, and when I look at my grades I find it more distressing.

Perhaps I'm exhausted from the fact that I have class from nine to noon everyday, followed by work from twelve thirty to five followed by homework.

Of course, one contributing factor I believe was that for the two months at the beginning of the semester I would come home from work at five and then go to rehearsal from six to eleven. I was simply exhausted. I still am. I'm not even taking a heavy class schedule. I think that this is the lightest course load I've ever had. That does not bode well.

Anyway, more on that later. But if you see my motivation anywhere, let me know.

The Wind

I believe that we as human beings live in the middle of a hurricane. Not a great physical hurricane taking place in the cosmos or even one of those minor ones that has a habit of destroying the Florida Keys every few years. I think we're talking about a hurricane of instability.

Fortunately though, I said we're in the middle of the hurricane, and as we all know from 4th grade science (or the movie The Perfect Storm) That's where the eye of the hurricane is. A place of relative peace sheltered from the winds of uncertainty. Where as long as we keep pace with the hurricane and move in the direction that it's moving you can feel a modicum of predictability

Out There amidst the shrieking winds and roiling waters are all of those things that we don't know about and can't approach for certain and can't predict. Out there is the untamed wild.

Did you know that the Wright brothers made 4 flights in their original flyer? They also made them within the space of a few days of eachother. What kind of weather do you think they flew in? If it were me I'd have waited for a calm summer day before trying to test out the first ever flying machine. No, they made the first flight in December of 1903. A very cold day in North Carolina and they did it by flying their airplane into freezing wind that was gusting at around 25 mph.

They flew directly into the wind and achieved flight. It's interesting to note that that legacy carries on today. To conduct flight operations an Air Craft Carrier will increase it's speed and turn into the wind before launching its airplanes. Moving into the wind and away from the calm was and is the only way you can make them fly.

Why, in life, are we so concerned with staying in the eye of the storm. Why don't we brave the winds? Why don't we make sudden changes? I don't know, I wouldn't be posting this if I did know. Maybe you do, will you share?

You know what I realized as I was writing this? When you are moving in the eye of the storm it may be stable, but there are clouds on every side. Only when you brave the winds and fly will you break out of the storm and see the sunset.