No one wakes up in the morning and goes about their life without motivation. Each of us has something that drives us to perform, to work and to keep going. For each person that is likely something different. It has taken me a long time and I have had some hard lessons learned as I attempted to figure out what that is for me. I ultimately found it not by examining the present or the future but the past, in my childhood.
As long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a person who has earned the respect of others for the things that I have done. I wanted to be someone who truly owned a legacy that others would look to and respect. Think Albus Dumbledore. What field that would be in, I did not know. Sadly, I was not gifted with magical abilities so I have had to look elsewhere. I still struggle to find exactly what that looks like but I am working on it.
Today I find myself in a world where it seems everyone around my age believes that they know everything. Everyone is a self proclaimed expert at everything and they have no empathy for anyone who has experienced something that they have not. People seem to be so focused on themselves. I find it very annoying and ignorant to say the least.
There always seems to be a movie scene that perfectly fits a situation. For this one I think of Colonel Jessop in A Few Good Men understands the way I feel. I seem to deal with so many people on a daily basis claiming to know everything who are all too ready to weigh their opinion on my life, my career or the decisions that I make. I work extremely hard and there are many people who depend on my judgement and leadership. People are rarely as eager to metaphorically put on their work boots and throw in a helping hand as they are to tell me what they think about the decisions that I have already made.
The point of this post is not to complain and not to place blame but rather to inspire and teach. I have learned a lot from people who are older than me because I attempt to take the time to shut my mouth and listen. There is value in the number of years a person has lived and things that they have done. If we each took a little more time to respect one another and listen to them, we would likely learn a great deal.
I think that for some reason millennials and their younger generation z siblings have taken an attitude that they know more than the generations that precede them. I can only imagine that this is because of the technological edge that younger people seem to have in today’s world. I am here to say that life is more than google and what you see on instagram. A photo or video can only produce the scenery that surrounds a moment. Technology has yet to be able to allow us to remotely experience something that we did not actually take part in or relive something that we have already been through. Only a true personal connection with another human being in the flesh can allow us to take from their true experience and allow us to learn more about life in general. This is called inspiration and it starts when you respect another for their contributions and deeds both seen and unseen.