Motivation

I think I've always assumed that there are people who Succeed, and those who don't; further, that for those who don't, the vast majority do 'well enough', and a subset couldn't do well no matter what was given to them -- what I once heard as 'couldn't get laid if he went into a women's prison with a fistful of pardons'. I've usually been in that vast majority, with nice things and bad things happening to me, and I've looked with some bemusement at the people who Succeed, wondering what it was about them that made their success possible.

Bear in mind, I'm not talking about the truly golden ones - the Gatsby's, who move through life with languid ease. I've only known one of them - a fellow with whom I worked as a missile launch guy. This person - well, if there were thirty of us, and one got the job that let him stay on base to work, and twenty nine got to go out into the field, driving hours to get to where we needed to be -- he was the one. When he got engaged, his next door neighbor was a jeweler who sold him a ring at the price that the jeweler'd paid for it. When he went to work for AT&T, he traveled the world, going to interesting places, making lots of money Nice things just happened to him. (Fortunately, it didn't seem to go to his head.) And I'm not talking about the ones who succeed through sheer compentence -- like a woman I knew who was excellent at anything she turned her hand to, from baking the most delicate pastries to photographing a shimmering flower to teaching the intricacies of software. She was, plain and simple, good.

I'm talking about the ones who, while looking like you, get the interesting jobs; get the opportunities that most people don't, but it's not always apparent why. I've had a few of those, and I'm grateful for them, but there were others that I'd have liked to have, and didn't. This happens, of course, and that strife is the basis for lots of fictional conflict - That damn Robbins, he got the Excello account I was working to get, dammit! It seemed over time that when good things happened to me, that was exactly it -- they happened to me. I didn't make them happen, I didn't make them more likely to happen. I didn't know how. From time to time, I wondered what was needed to succeed. Assume a ladder.....

Based on my dream last night, where I was in high school again, quietly watching the others interact, I still do.