Motivation
September 10th, 2007 Posted in Motivation
I had a conversation with an old friend who I highly respect, which is probably because he’s thinks alike. As a disclaimer, don’t read this post unless you are extremely competitive and want to be the very best. Anyway, I was talking to him about the two sides of a human being.
The human and the animal.
The human is logical. The human has ideals. The human can do math. The human is creative. The human can solve problems.
The animal is emotional. The animal craves food. The animal craves sex. The animal craves power.
How does this relate to motivation? Here’s the thing. I am always constantly looking to motivate myself. I have recently become less and less motivated despite hardly noticing it.
The motivation isn’t pure. It’s not raw.
The motivation I have right now is extremely idealist and logical. It works to a certain degree, but I’m not craving success anymore. I’m trying to achieve the enlightened state of people like Eckhart Tolle, but here’s the problem.
If you fully embrace Eckhart Tolle’s teachings or any other spiritual guru, you will lose motivation to be the best. Why try to take over the world or change it when you can just embrace the beautiful world around us. To be in the moment. To be enlightened.
There is a major problem with this if you have massive goals.
It’s too human. It’s too idealistic. In reality, people are both human and animal. For example, people kill others for a reason. It’s not hard to understand. However, the more I become “enlightened”, the more idealistic I become. I want to impose my ideals onto the world.
The problem is that I am now working against the grain. I am not working at my full potential because there is extreme power in our animal side.
The power of wanting to beat your peers to come out at the top. To embrace the glory of being the best. If you harness this, you will be so extremely motivated to work hard.
All the time.
The best way is to relate it to sports. It seems that people’s true personality comes out in sports. I am personally extremely competitive. I want to win.
People completely change when it comes to sports. Just look at soccer. People kill for it.
Motivation is not a problem.
However, I am trying to be 100% human, which means I am trying to be too idealistic. I want everyone in the world to be equals. I want world peace. I want everyone to just love each other and get along.
I am essentially becoming blinder by the day. Is it even possible for any of those ideals to happen. Probably not if you’re really studying humanity.
Anyway, I am saying that the highest potential in motivation comes from a balance of being a human and animal. The balance of big creative ideas and primal urges of power. For some of you, it is no problem. But for people who think too much, it is because you latch on to idealistic ideas.
This isn’t even rocket science. It’s so simple that I have blinded myself to it. I’ve been trying to use every trick in the book to keep myself to be motivated, but I haven’t been letting myself use the most powerful tool.
Embracing your primitive and evolutionary need for power.
I’m not saying to go around and start trying to manipulate and back stab people because you want to win. I’m saying that you should still remember we are still animals. Idealism is just a nice way to keep people from causing havoc and chaos. It keeps people relatively calm. Religion is a perfect example of this.
Idealism doesn’t get you out of the house to kick some ass (not literally).
However, you need to be human as well. It lets you create goals for yourself. It lets you be able to solve problems. It allows creativity.
Yet, don’t delude yourself. Your real motivation cannot come from just a belief. It comes from power.
Embrace it with balance. It will help you achieve your goals.
It’s ok to be the best. Just be smart about it or else a bonehead might club you to death.
Carl Zetterlund
P.S. Does the end justify breaking your ideals?
4 Responses to “Motivation”
By CatherineL on Sep 11, 2007
Hi Carl - balance is good. But not everything in the world is equal, and to help improve equalities, you need power. So it is difficult to achieve power and i see exactly where you’re coming from.
I used to think I would need to build a massive company and retire from that before I was able to achieve some of my goals to help improve the world. Now, I’ve realised I should start right away. The problem is, I would still need power - especially the power to influence others to help me. Does that make sense too?
By Carl Zetterlund on Sep 11, 2007
Yeah… not an easy question to answer. It also probably depends on the individual as well.
I’m starting to think that you should use your brains to creative something useful to people. You will then gain money which is power. Then you can use the power to spread your idealistic agenda.
It’s almost like spread your idealism is only a reward for how well you did in the realistic world. For example, Bill Gates made his millions because he understood software. Now he’s unleashing his idealism through his charity.
Hmm. Interesting. Thanks for your comment!
By CatherineL on Sep 12, 2007
Hi again Carl. My original thinking was much the same as yours too - make the money first, then improve the world. But, it would be even better if I could do both now. Or at least make a small start.
By Carl Zetterlund on Sep 12, 2007
Yeah. The world is too complex for a “right” answer.
I’m personally going to work on projects that can relate as much as possible as well as keep hobbies on the side that cater to my idealism.