What Motivates Us?

Some days I wake up with no energy. I feel no motivation to do anything. I don’t want to move. The resentment inside me grows until it poisons my mind irreversibly.

I want to sleep. I want to wake up.
I want to run. I want to be still.
I wish I had people to sit with. I wish I was alone.
I don’t want to be dependent. I wish I had a shoulder to lean on.
I want to breathe. I want to die.

It’s depressing that this is who I am. So many questions unanswered. So many doubts growing in my head.

I am exhausted. I am tired.

All. The. Fucking. Time.

I did not know why until I read the book “And the Mountains Echoed” by Khaled Hosseini. There is a line in there that says (and I am paraphrasing):

“people are not driven by what they want, but by what they fear.”

Some people fear being forgotten, so they work a lifetime trying to become someone respectable and loved. Some feel trapped where they are, so they spend years trying to get out. Some are afraid of what’s inside their head, so they shut out the noise with other things like work, drugs, alcohol.

I am afraid too. I am afraid of failure. So I’d rather not do anything where I will fail. I am afraid of not being liked. So I’d rather be the version of me that others like than the one that I would be proud to see in the mirror.

I want to be remembered. But what will they remember me as?
I want to live my life on my terms. But I am afraid of judgment.
I want freedom. But I don’t know what I will do with it.
I want to help. But I don’t know how.

So it’s fear. It’s fear that drives us. And it’s fear that stops us.

Counter-intuitive, isn’t it?

But just like any fuel that is used to power a machine, we can find alternatives. We should find alternatives. So I have decided that instead of letting my fears drive me, I am going to work to become a version of myself that I can be proud of. But everybody’s motivation is different. And it is up to us to find that drive.

So what is yours?