Underrated Motivation.
Be the change you want to see.”
I know I started with the most cliched quote in the world, but trust me it is supremely powerful. In this day and age of tension, technology and temptation, motivation has become a necessary ingredient. Are we, however weighing the quality of this ingredient?
I remember my days at BITS Pilani where I whiled away all of my ‘productive’ time playing the ever enticing Dota 2. Second year of Engineering was a near disaster, thanks to my obsession. The graph of my CGPA took a steep downward turn. Academics which had always been my first love, had suddenly taken a back seat.
“Unacceptable!” my heart said. I did not want to lose it all. I did not want to throw away all the effort I had put to get into such a great institution. I did not want to be… what I had become. Every inch of my being asked me to change. Little did I know that change would be so taxing.
The first few weeks went by without an ounce of change. I wanted to change but I had no motivation to do so. I needed motivation and I need truck loads of it. So, I turned to my dear old friend Youtube.com. Over the next couple of days I had motivational videos for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Honestly, I had turned into a repository of motivation.
Was I motivated, though? A different story all together! These motivational videos could only give me short-lived bursts of motivation. One instance of motivation followed by multiple instances of Dota 2. Something was fundamentally wrong. The motivation I got from these youtube videos wasn’t sustainable. I needed a stronger source of motivation, I needed a deeper sense of motivation, I needed a forever kind of motivation.
I turned to the world for answers, but the world turned away. When the world turned away, I turned to myself and I was pleasantly surprised. The motivation I needed lay dormant deep within me. All I had to do was listen to it.
From that day, till this day I make sure to give my inner motivation a little stage time. I haven’t earned a million dollars or travelled throughout the world or started a company…yet. But, I have made changes to my life in the direction I see fit.
In conclusion, I want you all to take away two important things from this read —
- Being willing to change is not enough. It is important to ‘be’ the change.
- External motivation is over-rated. The motivation you get from the world is short-lived. In order to stay motivated one should first find his/her inner motivation and then diligently listen to it.
I don’t wish to motivate you, for I know that it will be short lived. But, I do wish to help you find your inner motivation, because that is the only for us to be the change we want to see.
