Hello,
A wise professor told me in social work class one day: motivation is made up of two factors: hope and discomfort. In other words, when facing a problem, you can think about what if any discomfort it is bringing to your life, and what hope you might have of making a positive change for the future. I feel that this applies to my own life, as I am sitting here and pondering why I choose to address certain issues and not others that I am dealing with. I won’t venture into these issues, with an in-depth discussion, because I don’t want to complain too much or to bore my awesome readers. However, let it be said that I am human like everyone else; my disability does not keep my life problem-free; it actually provides me with more interesting subjects to think about. (Sometimes it feels as if I am becoming immune to some of these daily frustrations, but I do still get pretty mad occasionally. Yesterday I was walking with my mom down a New York City street as a few people started crashing into me because they didn’t look where they were going. She was annoyed; I just kept on walking as I explained to her that this is a daily frustration for me. In addition, I always notice when people don’t speak directly to me, instead they ask a question to my friend or family member who is standing next to me when they could have just as easily talked to me. However, these annoyances are just part of my existence as someone who happens to be blind)
Getting back to what I was saying before, I hope that this definition of motivation will enable all of us to see things from other people’s perspectives. Do you ask yourself why other people don’t change their habits or stay in a situation that you label as “bad”? I believe that it is probably: the person feels comfortable doing what he/she is doing, or he/she finds no hope for the future of change. Thanks to Lehman for teaching me this life lesson.
Dan