Motivation

Warning: The following is an exercise in navel-gazing, and is more a letter to myself than anything, which means it probably will not be that interesting to any of you.  Don't feel that if you start reading it, that you have to finish reading it.  And if you do finish reading it, if you feel like you'd like to punch me in the face a bit, then you're in good company.

Sometimes I can just feel the waves of disdain coming off my dog.  He takes a look at me, turns his head away, then wanders into the bedroom as if he can't believe I'm content to just sit in that chair and watch TV/take quizzes on buzzfeed/play Bubble Blaster on my kindle.  Now, if it's been a long day at work, then I don't feel so bad about it.  Or if it's raining.  But then there are other times, when for no good reason, that's all I want to do.  And then I do start to feel bad about not doing more with my time.  And then the guilt sets in.

Guilt seems to be one of the main motivators in my life, at least recently.  I take on responsibilities that I'm not really interested in, or have stopped being interested in, because I feel guilty.  I know I do actually have the time and brain-power to do these things, and so I convince myself that I will do them and should do them because it's the right thing to do.  And if I feel like no one else wants to do them either, then forget about it, I'm done for.  The down side to this is that it doesn't make me very happy.  In fact, it makes me beat myself up for not being a responsible person and better fulfilling these responsibilities that I talked myself into.  I've taken on such responsibilities both at work and in my personal life.  The work ones I'm much better about taking care of (since the school wouldn't run very well if I didn't), it just turns out that I don't enjoy them that much.  The role I've taken on in my personal life is a little more complicated, and is the one that truly bothers me.  I'm a leader in a volunteer organization, but it turns out, that with being in charge of roomfuls of teenagers every day and having to make all the decisions, in my extracurricular life I'd really rather be someone who just shows up and helps, not the one who has to set up and organize everything.  But how do you tell a volunteer group that you want to quit?  Doesn't that by default make you a little bit awful?  This is what I struggle with.

I never thought I was a person who has trouble saying no.  My students certainly hear it all the time ;o).  But I think I need to be better about realizing when I'm doing something purely out of obligation, and when I'm doing it because I actually want to.  I've lost touch with that feeling lately.  I had a bit of a pity party for myself this week, in part because my vacation plans were derailed and I was stuck at home (or did I stick myself there?), and I thought a bit about this relationship between motivation and guilt.  If I am motivated to do something by guilt, that motivation never lasts very long and then I feel guilty about not doing the thing that I set out to do, which eventually motivates me to get going again.  I think I need to tap into a more powerful energy source though, because those periods of guilt seem to be coming more frequently and lasting longer before I do anything about it.  Not a very effective way to get things done.

I do realize that I only have first-world problems, and not even terribly many of those, and thus I should be very grateful for my situation.  I am.  I'm just also trying to figure out how to be happier.  I hate to use the word inspiration, because it seems too naive, but I'm hoping that if I remind myself that my problems are under my control to fix, that I will soon be inspired to tackle them.  Let a sweeter life be my motivation.