So, What’s it Gonna Take?

I suppose a better question to ask is, “What is it?”
What is it? What gets you out of bed in the morning?
What motivates you to get out of bed and go to work?
Or if you don’t work, what pushes you?
What drives you?
What is it that makes you put in work?
Or what happens that makes you want to stand up even if you don’t have the strength to stand?

Some people tell me “it’s my kids.”
Or I hear people say, “I do it for my family,” which I get and I understand.
But what is it?
What turns and revs your engine?
What gets your motor running despite the empty gas tank?
What is it?

I have different answers for these questions.
Then again, I have a different motivation than other people.

I see this differently and from a different perspective.
Motivation is simply a driving force. That’s all.
I can nurture the sadness or I can nurture my drive to feel better.
I can learn to thrive on my own or I can allow the outside elements or judgment to sink me like a taken ship.
Motivation is neither for or opposed.
Motivation is only energy which is neither good nor bad, or positive or negative. This is simply a force or a thought.
Motivation is the ideas or the mindset that honors our needs or the desires in our hearts. This is what drives us towards a specific direction.
And sure, there are times when life seems all over the place. Of course, when it rains it pours.
Absolutely, it does.

There are times when doubt grows and anxiety mounts like a snowball, and suddenly, everything seems like its building or growing strong.
There will always be enemies to surround the gates. And their threats can grow, if we allow them to.
Or, we can let them fight on their own or slander, lie, create their own chaos, and they can live this way for the rest of their lives, for all I care.
I’ve fought enough.

I agree.
There are times when everything seems intense.
But still . . .
The lack of motivation is not the culprit. There is no lack of motivation. No, the honor is driven in the opposite way. Emotions can outweigh our best interest and yes, emotions can prevent us from reaching our best possible potential.
We can always choose to make a difference. In fact, one of the greatest personal rights we have is the right to change our mind.
Be advised, our mindset and our decisions may not be approved or coincide with other people, places, or things.
People can and will get hurt in the process of change and separations between us.
However, I firmly believe in the separation between myself and the chains that hold me back.

We can step forward. We can go left or right.
We can circle back. We can refuse to engage.
We can pause or remain still.
Or we can decline and continue to backslide.

No one can stop you from trying to advance and no one can stop you from trying to improve your position. This doesn’t mean that people will help you. This does not mean that people will cheer or even support you in the slightest — but in some ways, the lack of support and absence of other people can be motivating enough to improve your life, regardless of who stays or goes.

Here I am again.
I am not at an impasses or a crossroad.
I am simply moving. Going.
Walking. Hiking.
And exploring.
I am no longer running from anything.
No. Not at all.
If anything, I am running towards something.

I see this too frequently.
People run from things; in which case, they accept any port in the storm.
On the other side, if I run towards something, then I have a goal and a destination in mind, which I have, which is you, which is this, and which is here (and now) and which is why I refuse to settle ever again.
Therefore, and going forward, I will accept no substitutes.
I need this now.
Therefore, if I need this and I want to achieve this, then I have to be loyal to my authentic self.
I have to care for my roots so that I can be sturdy, like a tree that has outlived the centuries.
I am now and will always be the square root to my own equation.
Therefore, I have to care for this part of my heart, which was otherwise questioned and torn in battle.

I remember my biggest losses.
I remember the worst days or the days that seemed unfixable. Thusly, I remember the unsolvable problems and the questions that appeared unanswerable.
Nothing made sense.
Nothing was fair.
Nothing could change or help me.
I call this dying alive.

I remember the earliest times of my worst submissions.
This was life at its worst.
I remember the loneliness and the blame, as well as the despair and anxiousness about the shame that this was me.
I caused this.
I caused my own downfall.
I believed this.
I believed that I somehow deserved to be where I was — which was desperate and alone.
I was hurt, tired, and emptied like a hollowed spirit or lifeless, like a vacant soul that sways the same as an abandoned cobweb which lofts in the corner of the ceiling of an unkept bedroom.

I cannot say I know how I got up after falling down. I cannot always say that time heals all wounds.
Pain is pain.
I know this because I live with pain, which is not uncommon by any means.
I cannot say that time heals all wounds because this does not always hold true, depending upon the wound, of course.

Life can and will improve.
Or not.
But what decides this for us?

Do facts change as time goes on?
No.
Does trauma change?
Or do these things remain as they are and our relationship with them changes?
Is that it?

Does abandonment or betrayal go away?
Does the memory of a touch from an unwanted hand change or feel less disgusting?
No.
The only thing that changes is our relationship with these memories. So, I come here to change these things so that I can be better.

Or what about waking up to the awareness that you believed in someone (or something) so deeply?
What is it?
What happens when awareness comes and you thought that something was real?
What happens when you learn that you were the only one who felt this way?
Or what about the light that comes on when you realize that all you believed in was a lie.
An absolute lie!
Then you wake up to the realization that the life you thought you had was not true.
You were fooled.
Again . . .
Or maybe the life you thought you had was only true to you.
Does this change?
No.

Our relationship with this changes.
That’s how we can be better.
If I’m wrong, then at least I can say that I died trying to be better.

But I get it. It’s hard to see emotion.
Certain pains come without physical representation. Pain like this can linger without being seen. And we flinch. And we worry.
And maybe we cry at the drop of a hat.
And we barter and we trade.
Or we settle for something less-than because we never thought we could have what we want.

I have been compromised
And so have you.
We both want the world and we both want it now.
If not the world, at least we can say that we want to be happy.
We want to feel fulfilled and be grateful and satisfied.
We want “the life,” and to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with wanting “the life.”
This alone can be enough to create the motivation factor that leads us to our success story.

Motivation is energy.
However, sometimes we react to this energy.
We panic.
Or maybe we act out.
Maybe we roam around the world with subconscious thoughts that do not rise to the surface.
We act out.
We push people away.
We run or we hide.
Maybe we attack our innocent bystanders and as the saying goes, “You bleed on the person who didn’t cut you.”

People argue that they don’t know why they do what they do or say what they say.
But they do.
Deep down, old scars and old wounds embed themselves to create biases.
These create thinking errors, which cause us to believe that one thing is like all things, and thus, we learn systematic errors that cause us to inaccurately process information.
Either way –
I am not you.
You are not me.

I was not there at your worst nor were you there at mine.
No.
Life happened.
We survived situations that caused us to worry.
We moved and we ran and we somehow got by.
We lived and survived with knee-jerked reactions to a bias that taught us, “when this happens, that happens.”

You had nothing to do with my childhood pains.
You were not there.
You never hurt me like I was hurt before.
At the same time, I was not there for your situations.
I was not around when you were hurt worse than anyone else can imagine.
But can I tell you something?
I wish I was.

I was not there when you underwent the unthinkable.  I was not there to see what happened when you opened yourself up to a life that you really didn’t want. Yet, you gave it your all.
You settled.
We both did.
This is not a crime, per se.
But settling and not getting what you want in return feels like a burglary or a robbery in progress.
Right?

I was not there when you were hurt or rejected and unhappy.
You lived and you smiled and you acted, “as if.”
You put on your brave face and found your survival modes to keep you at least somewhat protected.
But your protection wore thin.
Didn’t it?

You agreed to disagree. Yet, it hurts when you are pleading for someone to “please notice me,” and then you scream at deaf ears, just to be ignored or dismissed — and where was I?
I wasn’t there.
You weren’t here.

You never hurt me.
At least, never intentionally.
You have no crimes against my heart.
And I know this.
Then again, this is why YOU are YOU and hence, this is why I value you so much.
All else is something that came from my biases and my fears which told me that when this happens, that happens.

You were not the one who rejected me.
You were not the one who lied or betrayed me. You had nothing to do with the times when foolishness wore around me, like an obvious cloak that would never come off.
I say this upfront and forthright because I apologize if my actions seem as if I blame you for anything that had nothing to do with you in the first place.

I know all too much about living dead or dying alive.
I hate the awareness that I have been played or that I settled and traded my worth for an unsuccessful value.

God, I hate that feeling—walking around like an idiot or a fool, as if all I invested was robbed or stolen.
And me?
I believed that I looked worse than the village idiot and sunk into the belief that I was incapable or undeserving of anything else.
“Who would want me on their side?”
Would you?
Would I?

Or worse, I submitted to the disbelief that love is real, or that love is this promised notion between two people — to have and to hold, for rich or for poor, in sickness and in good health.
I wanted this but this is not real when you fail to believe in yourself.

I despised too much because my resentments became too great.
You trusted too little because your betrayals were too many.

Do I have it in me to hurt people?
Yes.
Do I have it in me to be angry?
Or how about destructive?
Yes. I have this.
I also have this thing in my heart, which is broken but not dead.

It wasn’t you.
It wasn’t me.
Yet, I use the word “cautious” because I am supposedly being “careful.” And being careful is fine. Being cautious is fine too. This is smart. But fear has a way of entwining us with old fears that cause us to mistake the roads ahead.

I refuse to do this.
Hence, you, this, me, and all that has gone on is my motivation to stop the momentum and change my direction.

I admit to my narcissism.
I admit to all my faults, and yes, I expose them here and now because the more I expose them, the more I can allow my motivation to propel me forward.

Yes, forward, as in full steam ahead.
I do this instead of being pulled backwards to a live a life that consists of more of the same.

What motivates me?

I suppose I can say my ideas and the pictures I have of the so-called “good life.”
The beach and Point Lookout and what this place means to me.
This motivates me.
Or maybe I just like the idea of being part of a good team, or having a person who is not just irreplaceable, but more, I want to feel the best and truest connection.
I want to honor this.
I want to be rid of my internal laziness.
I don’t want to be like that abandoned cobweb in the corner of a celling in an unkept room.

I have so much to fix, and yes, this can be intimidating.
I have changes to make.
I have a life to adjust and sights that I need to see.
No one can stop me from trying to pull off my trick.
(Which is to be happy and no longer hurtful or a danger to me or anyone else.)
I might not be cheered or supported.
And I might fail (again) but at least I can channel my motivation and slowly but surely, I can move.
I can go, be, or do.
Whether I pull this off, or if I find myself alone, at least I know that I gave it my all
(so help me God).
I have to give this everything because you, my most beautiful and special girl . . .
You are what motivates me because alone or not, get ready
because here I come.
And there’s nothing to stop me this time.

I promise.