Motivation behind actions

In the life-long pursuit of existential harmony, a person must constantly look inwards; always questioning, always improving oneself. The latest in my series of "Get to know Rob" moments happened recently. Now, this post isn't about me... but I like to explain why I think certain things.

Recently, J-Love and I were talking (a past-time which only rarely ends badly for me) about something. I forget the exact conversation, so I'll make it up. We were watching a news program about a women in her 90's who decided to go sky-diving. She had a list of things to do before she died and this was on it. So J-Love brought up the question "Did that woman really want to go sky-diving? Or did she just want to be able to SAY that she had gone sky-diving?"

That really got me thinking. What is our motivation behind wanting to do something?

Since then, I've been re-evaluating my life goals. And also looking back at past events.

One summer in college I trained for a 10K race. At the time, I didn't like running much at all... and I certainly had never run 6 consecutive miles. So why was I training for this race? My ex-girlfriend was going to run it, and I desperately wanted to beat her. Unresolved anger fueled my workouts for those few weeks.

I didn't want to run the race. but I wanted to say that I beat her.

Now, since running is good for you, and it helped me to realize that I actually DID enjoy doing it, everything turned out fine. But at that time I would have been happier doing something I wanted to do instead (like play video games).

So think about what you want to do in life. Are there foreign lands you want to see? Languages you want to speak? Hobbies you want to pursue?

Take a moment to really find out why you want to do them. you may surprise yourself. and you may save a lot of time that otherwise could have been wasted.