What keeps you motivated ?

Well I think alot of it comes with age and experience. Take anger for example, you learn to pick your battles. SUre I can get angry that the highway is more of a parking lot than highway, but will it change anything? Will it make me get through traffic faster? Or will I just end up being upset over something I can't change?
Sure if my wife does something I don't like I can get mad at her, but what will it accomplish? She will get defensive ( a normal human reaction) then she will get angry, and nothing will get resolved. So what's the point?

As for motivation, well unless I hit the lottery or some rich fool decides to adopt a middle aged stranger, then I have to don't I? You take on responsibilities in life and have to take care of them. A house, a wife, a child, you look to them for your inspiration to keep on doing it. When you love someone you don't want to let them down.

Motivation for playing guitar? Don't need any. Thats my reward for doing all the other stuff I have to do.

What a tough one to respond to. You could write books on this topic. I'll give it a stab though. I just turned 40 and have finally figured things out I think. At least for now. :lol: :lol:

I work full time, cook, play baseball, ride motorcycle, play guitar, have one child, I'm married, golf, photography and I have a house. There is never a dull moment. I do not waste time watching a lot of TV. If I do, I've got my guitar in hand or a book. As you can imagine, it takes a great deal of motivation and time to keep up with things. Several things keep me motivated.

1: Keeping busy reduces depression and anxiety.
2: I can rest when I die.
3: All this is fun.... 'cept work. Work finances my fun.

There's not a whole lot else to it for me.

What a tough one to respond to. You could write books on this topic. I'll give it a stab though. I just turned 40 and have finally figured things out I think. At least for now. :lol: :lol:

I work full time, cook, play baseball, ride motorcycle, play guitar, have one child, I'm married, golf, photography and I have a house. There is never a dull moment. I do not waste time watching a lot of TV. If I do, I've got my guitar in hand or a book. As you can imagine, it takes a great deal of motivation and time to keep up with things. Several things keep me motivated.

1: Keeping busy reduces depression and anxiety.
2: I can rest when I die.
3: All this is fun.... 'cept work. Work finances my fun.

There's not a whole lot else to it for me.

Work finances your fun ...cooly said - BUT what if your heart JUST doesn't want you to work :shock:

Work finances your fun ...cooly said - BUT what if your heart JUST doesn't want you to work :shock:

Gotta do it. Find something that you're interested in. You're young enough now to pursue that avenue.

I read a quote sometime, somewhere...might have even been in someone's signature on here...

"Do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life."

Dunno who said it or where I got it from, but it makes sense.

Ok do something you love ...but that maybe bad also...illegal also and even immoral..THEN ?? (i am not trying to be picky..excuse me for that ...:oops: )

Eg - if someone got craving for porn (or cigerettes !!) and he knows its bad then where does that refrain comes from ...

No fair - you didn't say it had to be legal

The Factory pays for my holidays, my house, my beer, my guitar strings, my CD's, petrol in my car, and everything else I do.

Actually, my teaching pays for my beer, but if I lost a coupla students tomorrow the Factory would have to help.

Best,

A :-)

As a fellow student and young person, I totally sympathise with what you are saing Rahul. Sometimes I just dont want to work (I have a project due in 2 weeks and I can't bring myself to work on it yet).

You said your heart just doesn't want you to work.......how are you going to get educated......how will you get a job....what would you do if you didn't have a job / income of any kind? Trust me, the idea is great, the novelty wears off. Last summer I was without a job for 16 weeks. Great, I thought. Live with the parents for the summer, hang out with mates, drink beer, watch TV etc. After a few weeks I was bored stiff! All my mates went to work during the day, I had seen everything on TV twice, I had no money to see my mates when they weren't at work. I ended up pretty depressed!

Now scale that up to adulthood - when you're no longer supported at all. If you don't work, you have no money. That means no house. No car. No food. No heating. No anything. And thats NOT good!

Without a little work from someone, you wouldn't have the luxury of owning a guitar. Think about that.

I know this is abit all over the place, but in the end, working is just one of those things you have to do. Granted, find something you like doing and it will be a lot easier. But after 10 years I bet even a chocolate taster is fed up!

As for refrain, that is a personal choice isn't it? If you know something is immoral, illegal or wrong, and you choose to do it anyway, you know what might / will happen to you. Learn to say NO! Have a goal as well. Thats helps. I'm a self-confessed chocaholic, but the motivation of going on holiday to the beach with my mates inspired me:
so I gave up chocolate and lost 2 stone.

Pete

If you equate "work" with bad, evil or something you just don't want to do, then even if yuo were rich and didn't have to work, you'd still have problems.

I've been very lucky in that I've enjoyed every job that I've had. Mostly because of either the challenges involved in the work itself or (and more often the case) because of the people I met and worked with. Most people, if they are lucky, work a third of the hours of each day of their lives - it's good to find something you enjoy, whatever your age.

Another thing is to not let your work become a "defining" moment. Some people define themselves by their occupations ("I'm a doctor"), some by their relationships ("I'm so and so's husband or a father or child") and some by their dreams (I'm a musician). But the reality is that you're always a combination of a lot of things.

Everything about life involves work of some sort - ask any student, parent, boyfriend, girlfriend, band mate, let alone any "worker." It's simply a part of life. No one has a life where you get to totally decide exactly how it's going to be and what you're going to do. I think that the important thing is to bargain in good faith with life - give it everything you've got and share everything you get.

All this is coming from someone whose Neuroticism score was 15 (including 14 on Anger and 11 on Depression), so take it with a grain of salt.

Peace

I worked in a factory for 9 years and then the best thing in the world that could have happened did...I got laid off! Sure I was scared back then but looking back it was a blessing. I took my severence pay (ALL of it) and put it toward my first semester of college (26 years old at the time just starting college). My mother told me I was wasting my money and I should go get a job. No one thought I could make it. At times I never thought I would either.

Now at age 39 I have been a teacher for 5 years and I have a Bachelor's AND MAster's degree. Unfortuanately I am not married and I don't have any family except my mother. Teaching is a dream job for me after 9 years in a factory. There is NEVER a dull momment, not 2 days are the same, and the people I work with are the BEST!!

However, I get depressed all the time...I don't have any real friends, I don't date, and I sit home all the time. Some days I just kick myself in the butt and tell myself to get up and do what I need to do. Other days I wallow in self pity. Some how, some way I wake up every morning still breathing. Some days I drink till I pass out and others I cry myself to sleep.

However, as depressing as my life can get at times it's my students that keep me going. I got a Christmas card from a Kindergartener who told me he loved my class and that I "rocked" and that I should never change. It got me through the holiday season.

I guess what I am trying to say in a long winded way is that you have to find your own way. What works for me and everyone else might not work for you. I still haven't found that "magic" motivator and I'm almost 40 years old...

I haven't had a job in over a year and life is hard, no joke about it. I've put out eight job appilcations last year (yeah it's weak) and got no responses back from grocery stores to big box stores. All I want to do is work and make a living. Doesn't help either when my stupid truck is broke down.

I was told at a job interveiw that I was "over quilified" because I had some college (I didn't know community college could over quilify me). So I worked for my Dad in the oil field during the summer cutting weeds and keeping the field looking nice. It was hard work, but really satisfying.

I get where you're coming from Mike with depression. I'm at the same age where you started college. I also don't see my friends often, don't have a girlfriend, and hate driving (that causes problems to), and very little money to go places. I also got really burned out of college and tired of being made fun of.

I keep hoping for the right push or I make the right decision. My younger brother graduated college and most of my family believes that I can still do it. Maybe I just need figures things out yet.

That's a painful story mike... and i tell you many times even i feel quite depressed and so..but i still come out of it somehow..

Keep on moving , maybe that can help :oops: ( i am confused..)

Activity is something that helps you stay out of depression. Keep moving.

Activity is something that helps you stay out of depression. Keep moving.

well said, i agree fully.
like curly in the movie "city slickers" said "the secret to life is one thing, the trick is finding out what that one thing is"