Desire and Motivation

We all desire something and almost all of us are motivated to one end or the other...

Where does that desire or where does that motivation come from?

Some desires are completely inexplicable like your desire to choose the red shirt instead of the blue shirt or you desire the green bracelet over the purple one; you can't explain why--in fact, you don't even know why yourself!

Motivations, on the other hand, almost always have some sort of foundation or rationale behind them and you could probably explain why this and why not that... Motivations are easier to explain. You might even be able to trace the reasons back in your life and probably can even explain it back before your birth--"My mom and dad knew this and then they taught it to me, and now I know it too and want to keep doing it" or "This goes back in my family for generations and I won't be the generation that doesn't keep doing it also..."

Maybe, though, it's just deeper than that: "I feel that it's right" or "I've prayed about this and know that it's true." Sometimes it's not just a matter of preference or even of history, but it's a conviction that you have that goes so deep that you know that you couldn't ever not believe it.

Let's look at the flip-side though or the reverse side: Why don't you want to do that?

That's a little harder to explain for most people. You can say the negative of each reason, though, for your negative desire or motivation--I can't explain why I don't, but I just don't--it's inexplicable. I don't want that just like my father and my father's father didn't want that... Or, I just feel that it's wrong or I know that it's wrong.

Let's ask, now, how to get a new desire or how to be motivated? I think that this is a question or a problem that all of us, or almost all of us, struggle with. How can I create a new desire or how can I flip a switch and be motivated when I wasn't before?

I won't presume to be able to answer this for everybody or even anyone--you tell me! How can or do you do it?

JPS