Why Motivation Does or Doesn't Work

Monday Mountain
October 31, 2016

Breaking the Ruts:

Is Motivation a Real Remedy?

I always try to motivate myself through inspirational words, powerful thoughts, self-belief, and many other applications... But this feeling of empowered momentum always fades. Why does it always dissipate? This conundrum has been on my mind recently as I've been a fan of  everyone self-medicating their own motivation. A thought came to my head today as I drove nearly six hours to visit a handful of locations, it's a temporary solution much like taking an aspirin or other medication. Much like ibuprofen, it's meant to alleviate you of your pain until your body can naturally cure itself or repair whatever the cause of the discomfort was. 

When we seek to be inspired, we often crave a sort of fire to be lit inside of us. Allow me to dive into this analogy to explain how motivation can work. There's an ignition source, that initial motivation, it gets the fire started and may light the room briefly, but to really make a brilliant progress it's up to you the user to provide the fuel and to maintain this burning feeling. 

I suck at staying motivated, it's often like how they explain physics. An object at rest takes a lot more energy to get it moving rather to simply keep it moving. Also, the challenge is to fight the friction of vices and other obstacles around us to keep you from your goals. For example, if you wanted to get good at running a 5K race, you'll have to overcome the discomfort of being bad at running, the sore muscles after every run, and to continue development you may have to follow a training plan from an external source. Of course, most of the resistance is internal, that's what makes us human, the path of least resistance. It's the conquest of the resistance that makes it admirable. 

Really, truly, nobody should ever pursue a challenge to be admired by another. The whole idea of the conquest is to prove it to yourself, to make yourself better, learn something new about yourself, or whatever it is. Yes, I suck at motivating myself to do something for me and it's way easier to continue doing something you're already decent at. It's not about any of that really, it's about embracing the new challenge. If you don't want to then that's just alright, complacency embraces the familiar face. For me, I'll accept the challenge I bring to myself to push my limits, my comforts, and to develop my skills and abilities beyond what I ever thought.

Devilish Decadence & Digital Addiction

Friday Freestyle
October 28, 2016

Devilish Decadence & Digital Addiction:

Fantasies versus Experiences

Scroll through Facebook. I see people sharing short videos that resemble an ADD-friendly cooking show, where they introduce and show you how to make a recipe in less than a minute. I believe the same is true between these clips and those cooking shows I saw in the 90s growing up, it is rare that somebody actually makes them to completion. Now I'm not ragging on the videos, just the folks who share them.

I believe we have an addiction to fantastical ideas, recipes, and experiences, however, our weakness is that we never actually go out to live and bring them to reality. Perhaps there is this fear that our experience won't be as grand as the content on our social media feeds depicts it. Perhaps we won't be able to give an account appropriate of the true experience. Perhaps as a younger and less experienced generation, we want to seem to our peers that we are actually worldly. Perhaps to some of you the fantasy is just as good as the real thing, that share button grants you a brief pleasure and a lasting enjoyment for up to 48 hours after the share. 

Facebook Fantasies are a devilish decadence. They're not good for you, it's a self-indulgence into how good you are as a person or how admirable you are because your aspirations are sky high. Aspirations and to-do lists don't count, it's about as good as counting a "close to the rim shot" in basketball. Real things count. To actually live your life is the real challenge. So many times we go somewhere to do something or live out an adventure and we forget to relish the moment. If you forget to take pictures and forget to share on social media, then you are really in the moment and living it up with what's physically around you. 

Reposting anything that someone else creates is almost like making yourself out of paper mache, it's taking bits and pieces of everyone else adding some goop and creating a hollow person. Take those words beyond the surface value, figure out what they mean besides adding some magical meaning to your life for a few minutes. Stop sharing videos of recipe making with ADD or videos of some far away place that you can't necessarily afford to go to. Live in your own life, after all you are your own you. 

Of course this is all hypocritical, I'm writing on a digital platform about life how to live it and then I'm going to post this article on Facebook, Twitter, and maybe LinkedIn. Perhaps I want self-gratification, perhaps I want to share my idea, perhaps I want to offend people. Does it really matter what I want to do? It matters that you're reading this. What matters next is what you will do after you finish reading this. 

Following this I'm going to go work my 9-to-5 job, I'll listen to Podcasts in the car, I'll add things to my boards in Pinterest, I'll retweet motivational shit, and I'll like anything on Facebook that makes me happy for myself or someone else. It's a part of my ordinary routine. I'm also going to continue to write blog posts on QuintessentialVoyage, I'm going to set dates and make plans to live deliberately in the wilderness, I'll go into the gym and fight gravity by lifting heavy weights, I'm going to challenge the status quo and make myself my own foe. It's all a balance of your original content, your magnificent life, influences of digital world, experiences of the real world, and making it all into something worth sharing with other people in the world. 

What will you create? What can you share worthwhile?

Distance & Inner Circle

Thursday Thought
October 27, 2016

Distance & Inner Circle:
Why I Maintain Both

In the past seven years, I've been given plenty of reasons to trust and plenty of reasons not to trust people. It's never something personal against someone, okay sometimes it is. But for the majority of times when I keep someone away from my heart, it's to protect my very soft, very vulnerable interior. When you've been stabbed a couple times in the heart, you learn to shield that away from others until they prove they can be trusted completely. For those people I do trust, they're in the inner circle for sure.

My inner circle is composed of my family, the best friends, and that's about it. Being in the inner circle doesn't exclusively include my trust, it includes the support and love that I provide to my friends over time and whenever they need it it's available. That IC (Inner Circle) are the companions I've known for years and our bonds have remained strong even through distance and drama. Sometimes I still distance myself from those in the IC, I believe this happens because just like the plants in winter we need to withdraw to protect and we can regrow into something better for the spring.

Having a hard shell does not mean that you are constantly shielded from loving or receiving love or any other emotion, it just means you are more careful with your emotional spending and investing into external sources. Possessing a soft spirit is really the key to being human, by allowing others to see and experience your emotions and vulnerability allows them to drop their guard too. From time to time, although you may be the more damaged of the two, you might have to drop your guard first for them to allow you in.

It's all about balance, don't feel hate towards those who hurt you but rather feel love to those who sincerely care about that bleeding heart of yours. Those various emotions keep us real and authentic, the true value of humanity. Allow those into your walls who bring honest to goodness intentions and protect yourself against the evil doers and heartbreakers. This may prevent you from asking "Et tu bae?"

For the Love of Winter

Wednesday Wander
October 26, 2016

For the Love of Winter:
Why wintry weather centers my soul

Quiet, cold mornings. Snow falls as it dampens the sounds of the usual life brought in with the rising sun. It's a peace that seems to only fall in this season after autumn. In the life cycle of on year, I need this time to reset my mind and wrap myself in blankets and my thoughts.

Sure, as the air pushes in from the arctic, we face a time where things die and recede for self-preservation. Why should the emotion-fueled human do any different? Let our instincts for solitude and emotional contemplation ride out these few cold months. Love yourself and shower yourself in warmth from inside your own soul.

I love winter. It includes family-centric holidays, extended periods of time off work, cold air that sends us to the blankets and the hoodies, a re-evaluation of your life and how the past and future will impact you, and so on and so forth.

Winter is for lovers and dreamers. Winter calls for long slumbers and short dreams, hot fires and cold toes, evenings of cuddling and days of frolicking. There are many things we can do in winter, in those things we need to understand that those activities and those feelings are indeed fleeting and last only during that brief period of time, only to give its final bow for the return of warmth and rejuvenation of life.

Taking on Raps

Tuesday Take
October 25, 2016

Taking on Raps

If i were to introduce who I am,
It starts with a handshake and a smile,
Wearing plaids and sometimes argyle.
Don't allow that to deceive you,
I dont even know myself
There's more to me than what you perceive as true.
Pursuing more than trophies for my shelf,
Owning this hunger everyday in my soul,
working to fill an ever-empty hole.

I craft words every day in some form,
and it's never to inflict harm.
My physical and mental power is strong,
I don't ever lead anyone along,
i work to earn things even the shot is long,
to be a brute and an intellectual,
it's a conundrum,
They never see what I say as something truly actual,
Their doubt flows on and on.

I say to you who look down upon me,
Go ahead and plant those seeds,
You will reap what you sow,
I will continue to grow,
eventually,
You won't be able to look down on me,
No matter how tall I'll become
or how high I will rise.
I'll look at you as an equal one,
Don't you think that's wise?

Yeah, my ego is inflated, But I have my reasons,
Believe in your own pride, throughout all seasons.
Own who you are, you'll go far,
Invest in yourself and not the trophy on the shelf.
This is a draft purely rough,
writing in syllables and rhythyms is tough.

What's Affordable?

Monday Mountain
October 24, 2016

Affordability, How to calculate it.

For something to be defined as "affordable," by its definition would mean that it is inexpensive or reasonably priced. This is a relative perception of cost... It does not exclusively refer to money. What other forms of payment are you capable of? Well, there's the always rare currency of time, energy is another raw source, and intellect/emotion or as I call it brain power.

How can you tell if you can afford something? To begin with, there are two factors that will help you define if something is affordable. One is how much you have available to allocate and the other is out of available amount how much you're willing to actually spend or invest.

For example, fitness freaks... They workout for a set amount of time everyday regardless of what happens, why do they do this? They may not have a lot of energy or a lot of time available, but they do this because it means a lot to them and it's very important for the other parts of their lives.

The idea of being wealthy with time or energy is not about whether or not we can spend it all or save the most, it's about investing yourself into those areas than give you a return on that investment. Just like working out, sure at first you're worn out and sore, but the continued effort and growth in time will give you back more energy and more brain power to fuel your own progress in other areas.

What can you afford with your free time? What do you put your energy into that gives back? Question where you allocate those resources because you may be wasting your energy, time, or your emotions on something that won't give you the desired output.

Taking on Prompts, Part 1

Tuesday Take
October 11, 2016

UPDATE
From now on, Tuesday Take will be an interpretation of a quotation or poetry or a brief bit of writing based on a prompt found from the depths of the internet. If it is a writing prompt it will remain a mystery for the sake of the reader.

Prompt #1
Strolling down the street, I crack my neck, releasing some tension. Twilight faded as the sun tucked itself into the horizon. Continuing towards home, I don't want to go home just yet. Perhaps one more stop? Yes, let's. There are a couple more houses coming up on the street. About fifty yards away one on the left, and the other across the street and farther down.

As I get to the first house, I quickly knock on the door. A middle-aged, wiry woman opens the door, she's looking for whoever rapped on the door. She steps out and wanders down to the base of her porch steps... Quickly, she shuffles back inside. I listen for any chatter to follow, but there is none. She's alone. On to the next.

I knock harder on this door. A sour teenager answers, loudly looking for who disturbed his evening. He is fast to turn around and go back inside. Conversation is held inside, they try to solve the mystery of the knock-knock-ditch between the two of them. He's in the house with a teenage girl, they're about the same age. Oh, it's on.

The wind picks up. I need to hurry. I quickly approach the windows of the living room, there's a clean line of sight to the love birds. Now, what should I do? Aha! I mentally prepare my scheme... Then I hear two slight steps behind me. "What are you doing Ore?"

"Damn you, Lucy! Always interrupting my fun..."

Importance from Impacts

Monday Mountain
October 10, 2016

Real Connections, Realized.

Take a step back from your day, and look upon the events that unfolded today. Now look at the people around you. These other beings are hurtling through time and space and society, their direction is effected by you and me and all those other things around us all. I'm not trying to blow your mind, just simply show you that everything you do is the effect of someone else, and is a cause to someone's effect.

When we decide to react to someone else's decisions we can either be too extreme, not enough, just right, or event the wrong decision altogether. Simply, do you overreact or do you let it slip? Whichever you choose affects their interpretation of you and what they will do next.

Where am I going with this? Evaluate your actions before you do them. It's a simple thing to do, it only takes a split-second that can change their whole day. Small actions with genuinely positive energy, now that's a potent force for a better day!

I'm guilty of overreacting or taking something personally, it's taken me years to realize how important it is to take it all with some salt. That pregnant pause is tragic when poorly used, but a wise man will use it to make a wise decision.

When you look back on today, yesterday, or any past days, consider how your decisions may or may not have affected the outcome of that day. Your presence in this life is more powerful than you may think. Act wisely, you can pleasantly surprised.

Super Hero's Oath

Tuesday Take
October 4, 2016

Doc Savage's Oath

Let me strive every moment of my life to make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it. 

Let me think of the right and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with no regard for anything but justice. 

Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage. 

Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do. 

Let me do right to all, and wrong no man.

Scrolling through Pinterest, that's how I found this oath of a fictional character. It's one of the most admirable things that I've ever read. Yes it's a little singular in aspect, however, it is also powerful. If we all strove to follow even one portion of it, our society could be a much better place as a whole. There is a low possibility of such a large percentage of us even taking a single line of this to heart, however, if a small part of us all tried to abide to most of it... That could be a hell of a step forward.

What do you like or dislike about this?

What is admirable about this oath? What could be left out?

No Excuse for Such Behavior

Monday Mountain
October 3, 2016

Toxic Logic:

Making Excuses in Order to Reason for Your Mistakes and Behavior

This post took me a while to assemble the courage in order to type and put fingers to keyboard, why? Because I'm about to point out something we all do, and it needs to stop. I was afraid of hurting some people's feelings, that's when I realized it was not for the sake fo their egos, I was refraining in order to prevent any problems with anyone else for my own sake. 

We reward ourselves with calories for one workout. We tell ourselves that we will do it later. We justify our actions based on those of others. Each of those is an example of how we make excuses for doing things that actually hold back the progress of ourselves towards a better version of ourselves that we desire. As humans, the relationship we have with laziness has become a parasitic one, and it only hurts us more we go to it. I'm just as guilty of this as anyone else is.

Laziness is our argument for balance, we argue it for once we complete our hard work and complete that one task, that reward does not arrive after a singular day. The time earned to be lazy is not a one-for-one exchange once you apply yourself. "Downtime" is earned more at a rate like interest is returned to investments, a small incremental return on investment over time. 

Yes, everyone deserves a vacation or a lazy Sunday, but not every single day. If every day were a vacation, then you'd never truly appreciate what you have and you'd never understand what hard work really earns. 

Similar to the argument that laziness is deserved after the minimal effort is applied... There is the reasoning of "Adulting", which really is a plague that feasts on a combination of Peter Pan syndrome and Millenial self-glorification, however, that is a discussion for another time.

Go into tomorrow and work hard, every day should be a show of good work and genuine effort. Proof that we are working towards our own goals and helping to enhance the world that those around us live in. What are good, hard work are you doing today? Why are you putting it off? Let's get cracking.