When You Can't

Every heartbeat throbbed through Cameron’s chest, through his vest, and out of his uniform. Why was he doing this again? He didn’t even have to ask. As he crawled across the ground and the most dangerous moments of the last of his living time, he knew it was his only choice: save his comrades. He knew that if his sacrificial bullet made its way and silenced the executioner, he will have done the only thing that mattered. It drove him to make an impossible task, possible.

Harry turned over in bed. There was no reason to get up. Ever.

“What motivates me?” the question turned around and around inside my mind, bouncing off of possible answers. Then, I looked back upon times where I couldn’t stop working and giving, my heart pouring out to people. Suddenly, I remembered times where I turned over in bed and said “there’s nothing in this world for me” like Harry. I will affirm that I am not disordered nor double-minded, just motivated or unmotivated.

Is it something you can keep forever? Where can you pull more drive from when you’re running out? What is “it,” this “motivation,” even? What can make you choose to do what’s right? What makes you stop what you know you should?

Motivation equals love. Whatever you love will propel you. When you don’t love anything, you will run out of drive. Love is a choice, not a fluffy, pink thing. Sure, there are fluffy and pink moments possibly, but love is our decision to make the world better for someone else. Who is your someone? (If there’s no one there for you, you’re probably reading this in bed. [Not that beds are not good, sometimes.]) I’m not talking about a “someone special” as in telling you “Acquire a boyfrend or girlfriend, already.” For you, it might be God, your family, or your work, even. You probably already have a Someone, you just maybe aren’t being driven by love for "it"…because its lacking by your subconscious choice.

Emptiness swirls around and nothing is going anywhere. Then you put your hands up at the edge of the pool, and raise yourself up. As you scramble out, you’re dripping wet and dragging, but you’re no longer in it, because of that moment when you climbed out. You dry off and by nature of being out, you are moving again: forward.

There’s a lot of talk about “know where you’re going and what you want” and that might be good. But I might add “know what you love and where it is taking you—or keeping you.” That’s what I’m thinking about.

Don't be hiding in sorrow
Or clinging to the past
With your beauty so precious
And the season so fast
No matter how cold the horizon appear
Or how far the first night
When I held you near
You gotta rise from these ashes
Like a bird of flame
Step out of the shadow
We've gotta go where we can shine

For all that we struggle
For all we pretend
It don't come down to nothing
Except love in the end
And ours is a road
That is strewn with goodbyes
But as it unfolds
As it all unwinds
Remember your soul is the one thing
You just can't compromise