Thinking out loud about life: perspective & motivation
I sometimes wish I didn’t have it so easy growing up.
Well, growing up in a middle/lower-middle class home, I didn’t have it easy — I didn’t live in a big house or have expensive stuff surrounding me; however, I’ve certainly never fully realized the concept of struggling. I’ve always had a place to live and have always been able to surround myself with some kind of crap to keep me entertained.
I’ve never been faced with being hungry or homeless. And I’d prefer not to. However, although I appreciate my parents having done their best to provide for me, there’s a sense of perspective I just know I’m missing in life.
I’m supposed to have had instilled in me some sort of drive to do what it takes to provide for myself and my family.
Instead, I’ve always just cruised through life, living quite averagely, and it’s always been fine. Just good enough to get by, but rarely, if ever, doing more than what’s expected. In the back of my mind the entire time has been the idea that I could do a lot better with my opportunities and potentially achieve greatness – whatever the crap that means.
But the only opportunities I’ve ever “taken advantage of” have come as a result of being in the right place at the right time more than as a result of effort. What am I supposed to learn from that?
I’m certain opportunists can be successful because of their opportunism, but true opportunists at least seem driven and eager to be opportunistic. Or maybe that’s just a stereotype.
In any case, that’s not me. Unfortunately, most of the time, I’m just content to be comfortable.
I’ve been on missions trips and helped out those truly less fortunate, but at the time, it was just a thing to do. I could be finally, years later, starting to understand a little about what I witnessed. However, from those experiences, the prevailing thought I gained has been cynicism about how things suck for certain people but not for others, rather than perspective on how it could be worse for me — or why uplifting others is a truly the great thing I believe it probably is.
Not that I wish for worse, but sometimes I feel that maybe having an ounce of perspective about how life could be worse might make me value opportunities I’ve taken for granted, and that if I had that, I might be able to find it within myself — or just plain already have it within myself — to be more motivated and driven.
Tags: perspective, motivation, determination, drive, ambition, opportunities, opportunism, mission trips, missions, missions trips
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