Motivational Fire

It wasn’t long ago I posted on Facebook how amazed I was about what motivates me as a person in the everyday things I do. Well, I am still amazed and often wonder where does my motivation come from. A lot of people might agree that attitude and motivation go hand in hand. Yes, I do agree that one does need to have a positive attitude in order to have any kind of motivation to accomplish anything from getting up in the morning to grading those spelling tests.

Before last night, my thoughts of motivation were focused more towards what motivates people to do dumb things instead of the positive attributes in life. Of course no one can probably answer that question. Anyways, my wife and I watched the movie Soul Surfer. If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend it. Bethany Hamilton was a young lady who had her arm bit off by a shark while surfing. She had everything going for her prior to the accident and was well on her way to being very famous as a surfer. Needless to say, today she is very famous because of her story and her surfing abilities.

Surfing was everything to this girl and it seemed as if her life was going to change forever because of the accident. As the movie progresses, she participates in a regional surfing competition and doesn’t do well at all. First, I asked myself what motivated this young lady to try such a feat despite only having one arm? Was it her belief in God, her sheer work ethic, her desire to show everyone she could no matter what? Hmmm, I still can’t answer that question. I was at a point in my own personal thoughts, prior to the movie, believing kids are becoming more and more lazy these days and aren’t really motivated themselves to do much of anything.

I continued to watch the movie seeing a young lady that tried, but was starting to realize she may not be able to surf and as the movie moved along, she came to realize surfing isn’t everything and there are more important things to life. However, she never did forget about surfing. She worked incredibly hard and competed in nationals for surfing, eventually winning nationals.

Now, as the movie ended, I still couldn’t believe someone as young as her had such motivation, determination, and perseverance. It made me realize our youth today still has a lot of motivation and work ethic. The more I think about it, the more I am determined that it is my job as a parent and a teacher to find out what motivates my children and the children I impact each and every day when I am in the classroom.

These simple thoughts alone have given me more motivation to do my job as a parent, husband, friend, teacher, etc. Perhaps I should have learned this along time ago, or I am preaching to the choir. Nevertheless, I think we need to take a look at ourselves and figure out what motivates us to do what we do and see if our fire needs to be rekindled.

Cheers!