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CARROTS
. . . sometimes attached to a stick
Sunday Feb. 9, 2014
What motivates?
Can we succeed – should we try pleasing ourselves, or serving others?
What is essential to your happiness, what carrots do you chase?
When we go to work Monday mornings or spread projects out on weekend floors – what is our motivation?
To buy bigger houses, wear latest watch fashions, take coolest trips or enjoy incredible treats – just as advertised?
Does true happiness come in some other form of reward?
Pleasing ourselves seems ubiquitous. Check your thoughts after viewing advertising geared to your likes/wants/aches for – new car, sweater, house, couch, vacation, watch, gadget. Thought may be planted by Madison Avenue Madmen types, but once that wish seed is planted, becomes part of what we think about, dream about … any trinket you desire.
Significant V-day coming up – advertisers are marketing cards, chocolates, jewelry and cars, furs and things, anything that will put smiles in eyes and evoke words of love and joy to cement the deal, seal the kiss to ensure for that day, for another year, of bliss.
Wine?
Dine?
Selling motivation and merchandising. To sell them more widgets.
If you make that happen, then monetized prize is your fine reward.
But consider a different path …
If your project is to save lives through your actions, make the world a better place through your ideas or provide necessities of life and education to a child by your influences – what reward do you need or deserve?
My V-season wish is that we all could see things that way.
My belief is that not enough people act that way, think that way or are motivated that way.
How do we change that?
Mark Kolke
199,192
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -24C (windchill -34C) / -12F, ice crystals on windshields, clear and very cold, streets were quiet but the trees were filled with birdsong like a chorus you’d expect at sunrise in the summer
Reader feedback / comments always welcome:
Ah, Mark. Thank you for your constancy. I got your message not 20 minutes after I read your latest Musing, so although you don't often see me, I am there. Your thoughts about your friend Gary are very touching and real. You put so well into words what we all struggle with when there is one less person in the world who cares about us, who shares and understands a mutual history with us. That "phantom limb" feeling persists, as if an arm has been severed. You surely touch many more people than you realize, and you are a part of their history, too. A warm hug for you on a cold night, MO, Monterey, CA
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