Why We Try

Not long ago, I began to wonder: Why don’t I just do the things I want to do?

Those magical things that would give life meaning and make me feel so proud… not the TV watching and eating homemade pizzas that I do manage to accomplish.

I mean the big stuff: publish that novel, work on that great website idea, start a social group for girl geeks, really and truly commit to a physical activity plan. The big stuff that we all think we might do, we probably will do, we should do – when? Before we die, of course.

But somewhere in between now and that unknown date, why don’t we do those things? Why do they linger as dreams and hopes? Are we afraid of failure? Are we not confident in our abilities? Does anybody really understand what is going on?

Our advertising friends, they know we have these dreams. They know we will pay good money to feel like we are one step closer… and then they leave us hanging, wondering why this great stair-tread-walker-sizer is not helping. We are lost in our own misunderstandings of what motivates us.

Some people do the great things, follow their dreams. Do they possess some different trait, some innate focus and drive that we lack?

Because here is the weird thing that started me on this track: I do things. I do things like decide that a particular image in my head needs to be a painting, and I find the materials I need and the colors that I need and I make that painting. The only one in my collection, because I am NOT a painter. I decide that I want to learn about something, like a programming language, and I study it without even having a computer to write code on. I learn it, and yes, later on get the computer and completely change my life with a new career, but I wasn’t planning that when I started. I just wanted to try something.

If I can do that, why don’t I do these other things?

Here starts the process of exploration into motivation and mind-games. Why did I start this blog? Something made me try.

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