Motivations come in every size and shape. Though the subjects seem generalized when portrayed in surface words, the journey to come to these realizations is as unique as the mind itself.
Over the past few weeks many conversations I've had surrounded the topic of love as life's motivation. The love of children, the love of a partner, the love of religion, and the love of God. To many people the last two subjects I listed are one in the same... to me they're not and my reasoning will become apparent if you choose to continue to read this.
A person's motivation as I see it is a hallway leading to a great circular room of doors. Each of these doors hang upon it a label of emotion. As the hallway connects to this room you find passages on the left and right. The floor to the closest ones are the most worn, the most used, and the most lit. Most of these may not even have doors because they are passed through so often. Then as you look across this massive room you see more doors as a shadow slowly engulfs the other side. These are the emotions rarely used. I would imagine at some point in the past they were locked or walled off because of some traumatic happening that took place or even a moment of enlightenment that caused a belief that for whatever reason we don't trust ourselves to pass through.
Now let me break off for a minute. The reason I wanted to write about this subject started as just one thought. I thought it was just a mood I was in, but it just stayed with me like a passenger tied to a seat in a boxcar of my train of thought- riding around with me wherever I went. The thought was this: Where are all the happy people??? I'm not talking about that fake happiness that is turned off like a light switch as soon as a person is alone. I'm talking about true-to-the-core happiness. The type of happiness that can be seen in your eyes, the happiness that keeps you smiling when no one is around, the happiness that allows you to fall asleep to the anticipation of what new awesomeness tomorrow may bring. A happiness that lasts.
I am a person that fully believes you will never know a person unless they allow you to see their heart. The easiest access to anyone's heart is genuine love... what I believe is God's love given to them by you with no intentions of gain... no underlying motivations other than a simple want to know that person for who they are. People will open their heart to you without even realizing it if they can feel that love. I have been invited into many hearts and what I have seen hurts. It's beautiful, but painful. We hide so much of ourselves in our hearts that a lot of the time we're ashamed to even shed light on it to ourselves let alone invite anyone in. This has anchored that question even deeper into my thoughts... where is the happiness???
Happiness is obviously a bi-product. It happens when something in our life provokes it, and that got me thinking... what could provoke true happiness? I thought about normal things that may make us happy... a promotion at work, a compliment, a refreshing warm rain after a heat wave, making love, etc etc etc. These events can provoke happiness, but on what level and is it actually true happiness? Most of the things I thought of may keep us happy for a minute, maybe even an hour or day, but what happens in our lives that keep us happy for extended periods of time? Then I thought of relationships... pets, people, religion. Can I consider relationships as events? They are more like a conglomeration of events... and although they can cause happiness, they can also cause many other emotions. Do you see where I'm going here? They can't be labelled as events because they're our true motivations.
So here's an example... Joe is crazy happy today, so happy he's blasting some good tunes and dancing around his house. Now one might say that his happiness was caused because he signed a huge money-making contract with a client. You could also say that his happiness is just temporary because if he doesn't sign another client for years to come he wouldn't be happy, so its not true-happiness. If you go deeper, you might say he is truly happy because this contract gives him the ability to stop focusing on finances that were straining his relationship with his wife and focus on what he can do to help save his marriage... again though we can play the temporary card and ask if that's true-happiness. I think you get the picture.
Now let's get back to motivations. I stated earlier that motivations are the hallway to the great room of emotions. (remember we're trying to figure out how to get to true happiness) So let's say love is the hallway. We love our child, so that's our motivation to be a person they can look up to. We love our boyfriend/girlfriend so we work harder to be the person we perceive they want us to be. We love our church so we give our time to show our commitment to the cause. These are all tangible relationships/motivations. Now let me ask you this... What happens when those motivations dissolve right in front of us? It happens everyday... We get a divorce, a child dies unexpectedly, our head pastor is convicted of some scandal. Well, we change motivations, right? Easier said then done. And who is going to be the ass to tell a parent to get over the death of their child and choose some other motivation? Or to forget about their spouse of over 20 years and find someone else?
Let's just say we do find another motivation to focus on
The next motivation (hallway) we walk down has another great room, but in this one the happiness "door" is located further away from the hallways entrance. This is life. This is the world we live in. So logically speaking our true-happiness needs to be anchored to a motivation that is not tangible... the love of something that can't die, that can't leave you, that can't be touched by circumstances or life. What does that leave us with? Something not of this world, something we can't change no matter what we do or say... that something is still love... I believe the motivation we need is the love of God. Now don't get all religious on me! You still have to choose your motivation. You have to decide what hallway you walk down to get to true-happiness. Its a daily decision and the love of God is still a relationship. The problem is that most people, believers or not, perceive you need religion to achieve the love of God. What if I was to tell you that God is willing to give you his love at no cost? He is willing to love you just to get to know the real you... no self-glorified intention, no underlying motivations, just unconditional love... what if he doesn't even require you to love him back to receive his love? Would you choose the love of God as your motivation? Would you make his love your hallway to true happiness?
This is what I have chosen. This is what I live in and if you don't believe me, let's have coffee. You can look in my eyes, I'll let you into my heart and you can see for yourself... I am truly to-the-core happy and all I want is the same for you. I'm not promising an easy life. I'm not saying bad things won't happen to you. I'm not looking to win souls. I'm not saying to join a church. I don't want your money or your time... I just want to see more happy people in the world we live.
