Recent Musings:
Wait - whose life is it, anyway?
Hey - there's an elephant in the room!
Self-motivation.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
I was struck by something this morning as I sat alone in my Pittsburgh apartment, reading and sipping coffee. If I was not self-motivated to be here and to make the life changes I had made to be here right now, I could be a pretty miserable girl.
What I mean is that had I not decided to be here, if I had been motivated by parents or a significant other or the forces of society, going through the motions of surviving in a new city would be much more of a chore. Put bluntly: I'm the only one keeping me going right now.
Of course, my spiritual beliefs are that I'm never alone and so God is with me here and wherever I may choose to go. He supports me, guides me and loves me, so that motivation is also a large push forward. However, I'm not doing any of this for anyone other than me. I don't wake up in the morning and decide to accomplish learning new streets and reading 1,500 page novels and digging my way through my boxes because someone told me this is what I should do. This is what I've chosen to do; this is what I want my life to be; this is the decision of my future.
This isn't coming out quite right. The gist of what I feel is that I'm glad I've stopped making decisions in my life based on the influences of others. I'm glad that I'm motivated to live my life based on the things that are important to ME. I'm glad that I have made efforts to stop allowing others to determine what's best for me, as they are not the ones living my life at this moment. If I was here right now for any other person, any other reason, any other motive beside my own, I would not only resent my life, I would resent the person that forced me into this position.
Because honestly, it's kind of hard to be alone in a new city. Yes, it's exhilerating and the possibilities for exploration are endless, but it's scary to not know how to get home to your apartment once you pull out of your parking spot. If I hadn't made the concious decision to make this work and if I don't make the concious decision every morning to answer the question "how am I going to make this work?," it would be really easy to give up.
My motivation level does waver and I know I've thrived more in the past, but my willingness to find a way to make the scary and unknown things happen, through mistakes and all, is expanding and growing. For that, I am grateful and look forward to today.