[Thoughts from a Sylph—Sha’Tara]

Likely everybody has some pretty accurate idea of what ‘motivation’ means.  Usually it is associated with a goal.  Also, it is something the corporate business world has been quick to shove at its millions of below-average-wage earning employees world-wide.  If you can get a ‘motivated’ person to work for you, or you can convince your employees to become ‘motivated’ hey, it’s money in the bank.  They’ll do more for less, thinking that by their dedication they’ll find advancement in the ranks.  Only when they get older, sometimes wiser, certainly more jaded, will they realize how they were totally played for suckers. 

I remember being in the category of the success oriented motivated types.  My goal or goals weren’t completely dollar driven.  I’d have settled for a mere $500,000 a year with perks you know.  I could have justified this to myself too, because I was inclined towards seeking to improve the lot of the poor, towards pushing for more social justice, that sort of thing.  But from a business-directed viewpoint, it takes a hell of a lot of money to help the poor, and the downside is, that money won’t come from the rich, so guess who it must come from?  You guessed it.  (Incidentally, I make about a tenth of that today and relatively speaking, I consider myself to be, and I feel, inordinately rich.)

It’s like the lottery.  A million motivated people will buy a $10 ticket on a million dollar draw and lose.  But there will likely be one winner, and that will be trumpeted as representative of the wonders of playing the lottery and as a predictable result, the same million will buy another $10 ticket, and new suckers will come on line too.  Again, for the promoters, money in the bank.  I’m guessing as to how this works as I’ve never lost a lottery draw.

Never mind that it is gambling.  Never mind that it is totally immoral and that once upon a time in our ‘great society’ gambling was the preserve of organized crime.  Gambling hasn’t changed but the laws have.  Interesting that.  What motivated this change in the law?  Well, people deserved a fair shake at breaking out of their boring lives, so the Lotto was instituted to give them that chance… yeah right!  Money and profit, for government and for bureaucratic promoters, that was the motivation.  The Great Volunteer Tax is a smashing success.  Why?  Because of motivational advertising aimed squarely at Earthian greed. 

Yes, and another interesting observation:  I distinctly remember a time down here in the valley of the gods otherwise known as Bible Belt Lower Mainland, when God, no less, had declared Television to be a tool of the Devil and true Christians did not own such an instrument, nor did they watch it, or allow their children to do so.  Again, Television did not change, except perhaps to become even more saturated with depraved or inane commercials.  But ‘God’ changed His Divine Mind when He realized TV could mean reaching millions of people who no longer bothered with church and at the same time, could mean billions of dollars in profits for his prophets (did I write that in the proper order or did I get it backward… hm, prophet, profit… never mind).  You could say that God found His motivation in financial benefits.  So it is then that God is just as greedy as the people He created but why should that be a surprise… (Incidentally my Teachers, many years ago, explained how TV poisons the mind—I haven’t watched it for about 25 years now.)

I’ve mentioned the common motivation encountered today.  There are, however, individuals who are motivated in other ways.  Some people choose to motivate themselves to change their character and I believe this is probably the over-riding reason we are all here, increasingly jammed-packed against one another.  We can see that the more selfish we become, the more our quality of life disintegrates.  Crime increases and our sense of security and wellness decreases.  We move faster and farther but the costs grow as the benefits (in happiness especially) dwindle.  This tells us that as a society we are going in the wrong direction.  Our personal motivation has to make a 180 degree turn away from the brutality and dehumanization of the stock market to looking at our minds, our bodies, our neighbors, friends, world.  The question of the day has to be, “How can I help someone today?” and go from there.  The opportunity to do so will manifest in very short time!  From that will grow the desire to be a compassionate being.  That will translate as the greatest self-satisfied feeling ever experienced.

Here’s a story culled from somewhere, that illustrates another type of motivation: 

“Wilma Rudolph was the 20th of a family of 22 children.  She was prematurely born with survival doubtful.  When she was four, she contacted double pneumonia and scarlet fever, leaving her with a paralyzed left leg.  At nine she removed the metal brace she had depended on and began to walk without it.  By 13 she had developed rhythmic walk, which her doctors said was a miracle.  That same year she decided to become a runner.  She entered a race and came last.  For the next few years she came last in every race she entered.  Everyone told her to quit but she kept running until she actually won a race, then another.  Eventually she won every race she entered.  The girl who had been told she’d never walk went on to win 3 Olympic golds.

Moral (from several similar stories):  Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.  Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the mind be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.  Strength and confidence are gained each time fear is looked right in the face; every time a thing thought ‘impossible’ is accomplished.  The finest steel undergoes the hottest fire.  The winner is not the one who doesn’t fail, but the one who never quits.”
(Author Unknown)

Character change is how we literally re-make ourselves.  Desire, thought, practice, experience: that’s what moulds character.  Once we have that self-made character nothing can take it away from us—nothing.  Not fame and fortune; not disaster and loss.  Character is who we are and when it is self-made we know exactly who we are.