On losing motivation (to change the world)

There is this notion of the so called 80,000 hours. This is the amount of time apparently an average person spends working during his/her lifetime — basically, away from his/her family to get from A to B, to put things on the table.

(As they say: You’ve got 80,000 hours in your career.)

Whether this number is accurate or not I’m soon reaching the half of it. It roughly equals to 15 years of someone’s work life.

I consider myself lucky. Being one of those who — during this time, roughly 40,000 hours so far — managed to get from A to B (and even to C) while most of the time also enjoying the ride.

Of course, like — assuming — pretty much everyone else I set out to change the world, to make it a better place. I tend to believe that I did, on a small scale.

Earlier in my career I used to teach at a college. Based on my students’ feedback the impact I made in their life during that period makes me think that I did make the world a slightly better place — through them.

I did not stop there. Working in IT I — again — tend to believe that all those software projects I contributed to had positive impact.

That’s another question — and a completely different story — that working on virtual stuff (websites, mobile apps) actually does make the world a better place or not…

Over the years though, the motivation and drive to change the world started to fade. Why is that? I have a few theories.

These are quite controversial thoughts and can also be completely wrong.

Here is what I think.

I consider myself fortunate, so I’m not going down the negative route here lamenting on why someone can not change the world because of struggling day in and day out and fighting the wrong fights.

Losing motivation can also be caused by — for the lack of a better word — mediocracy. Or rather reaching mediocracy.

Let me explain.

I think to get to a state where you are back to full motivation and set out (again) to change the world happens when:

• you’ve got nothing to lose (meaning that you have lost everything) so can safely start over,
• you’ve got nothing to lose (because you’ve got everything), so can take huge risks without affecting the life of others / your family.

The hard part is when you are in between.

I’ve got the glass half full: achieved everything I dreamed of so far, leading a stable (and quite predictable) life. Life is good.

Why should I give up this status quo? Maybe my dreams are just too mediocre? (Hell, yeah, another great topic to explore: how big should you dream? ;))

Looking back I experienced both:

Early in my career I had nothing to lose: had no family, no properties, no assets. It was very easy to say: ok then, let’s make it happen. And so I started teaching, learning, contributing. Starting up was easy.

The second major phase occurred much later when (I thought) I had everything: a well paying job at a well known multinational company, a family, properties, assets. Experience, skills.

And I jumped into the unknown…

Ok, fair enough, I did not lose it all, simply let myself start from scratch, leaving all behind: moving to another country.

It was one of the best decisions of my life. I had a strong background and skills — so it was not THAT difficult. But I had to climb the ladder again. It was scary, but it was great. And it led to another phase where I believe I contributed again.

How many time does someone need to make this bold decision?

To press the “reset” button?

Would love to hear your views on this.