Perpetual Motivation

Motivation is an elemental thing. It is necessary for any willful act to take place. What I am concerned with today is not motivation regarding simple willful tasks such as wearing a jacket when it's cold or staying awake during a boring lecture. Quite regularly, I feel a strong urge to do a thing, anything--get back in shape, craft a toy for my children, learn how to invest, etc. But rare is the motivation of that sort that persists beyond the first few days of existence.

I recently read some writing I had scribbled down several years ago and realized that I’ve been trying to piece this puzzle together for a long time. It’s ironic, and truly telling, that my ambition for finding a way to perpetuate motivation had waned, and for so many years. Now it has resurfaced and I can already sense it dissipating like a drop of color into a cup of water--so poignant and striking at the first instant then, almost imperceptibly, steadily becoming more dilute until the significant impression of the first moment is replaced by the murky image of a single tinged mass. How can you maintain it?

The chief reason for this fading of ambition has got to be the swarm of ideas and impulses that ceaselessly invade my mind. I cannot stop the swarm from drowning these thoughts within the confines of my mind, but I can snatch and store them safely outside, on paper or digitally. So summaries of these motivations can now persist and be visited as often as I like, provided I maintain the motivation to revisit them. With hope, a scribbled note will reanimate that first ardency that was once so powerful.