(Disclaimer: This is a baby thought, it has not worked it's way full through my thought process. So if I'm full of it, feel free to tell me.)
Motivation has always been a huge battle for me. It's one of those issues that seems overwhelmingly overwhelming most of the time. Like, I know it's something to work on, I just have the hardest time sitting down and taking the time to sort out the huge knot of mental processes and figure out where the root of the mess is. But I think a huge part of it is self-control.
Sounds obvious? Let me explain. Christians tend to be big on the issue of self-control. It's a fruit of the Spirit and all that. And let's be honest, most Christians are known by what they don't do rather than what they do. That's a whole other issue, but at the heart of all this "not doing things" there has to be self-control, right? Not necessarily. At least, not in some areas.
A lot of it ends up just being keeping yourself out of certain situations. For instance, if you are never around people who smoke pot, are you ever going to have to exercise self-control to not smoke pot? Yeah, a little bit, by not going and searching it out. But that takes a lot more effort. And if you're like me, and had to sit through two years of an AWANA leader who was a Vietnam vet and waxed eloquent at least every other week on the stupidity of doing any sorts of drugs based on his experiences in 'Nam, it's not going to be one of those things that's high on your list.
That being said, aside from the big things (which everyone has different convictions on), there are those little, quieter things that happen in day to day life and that's where self-control really becomes an issue. At least in my life. The choices that seem to affect a whole day, like whether or not I'm going to pay attention to my alarm and get up at a decent time of the day even if I don't have work or classes to get to, or if I'm going to ignore it all 6 times it goes off and sleep until noon. I bet you can guess which one leads to a more productive day. Or whether or not, when I do get up, I'm going to spend an hour on Facebook before even eating breakfast, or if I'm going to jump straight into my to-do list. That's where motivation and self-control become issues for me.
The problem is, that maintaining a schedule when I'm jobless and only have things going on in the day every once and awhile is freaking hard. It's one of those things that no one ever tells you about being an adult when you're a kid. Like, you have a list (and for me, I need a physical list or else nothing gets done) and if you don't get it done THE THINGS DON'T GET DONE, and that can have some serious consequences. This seems like it should be obvious, but it's one of those things that becomes an epiphany when the dishes suddenly resemble Mount Doom on the kitchen counter and I'm standing there wondering why I didn't just wash them one at a time. That's pretty easily fixed. The bigger consequences are when bills don't make it on the calendar and then subsequently don't get paid. Thankfully, I've gotten better about those big sorts of things. But it's still something that I had to learn that no one seemed to tell me about. Yeah, I had classes and even a business math class where we had to do mock-ups of all of it. But when the consequences aren't real, the lesson doesn't get learned as well. Or so I've learned.
Anyways, back to my main point. What is the root of motivation? That's what I've been trying to find so I can fix whatever issues I have with it. I'm starting to get better. I mean I'm working on it every day. That's part of the reasons I keep challenging myself to things like NaNo, or Holidailies. It takes a whole lot of motivation to keep up with one thing, even just for a month. And it takes self-control to sit down and do it even when you're not motivated to. Which is where discipline comes in. I think it's telling that Hebrews 12 states outright that no discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful. Most people attribute that to discipline like being punished. But I find it's more the daily sitting down and saying, "it doesn't matter how hard life is, I'm still going to do it to the best of my ability and take the time to do the things that I need to do, even if I don't want to." Some people are like, "well, that's just being an adult." It appears that being an adult requires discipline. Go figure.
These are really just a series of thoughts that may or may not be one major thought. I don't really have real answers, because I still have a hard time thinking of myself as an adult so I don't know what the adult answer might be. On a complete unrelated topic, I just read one of the most brilliant commentaries on the state of the Christian music industry ever. You can check it out here. Until tomorrow!
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