Shut up is the new black.

Why do you get out of bed in the morning? Are your reasons selfish or selfless?

What I mean is, I’ve been thinking a lot about motivation lately. As a writer, I know that characters who don’t want anything are dull—the death of a story. Whether or not I choose to reveal the specifics, it’s up to me to determine that drive while making it believable. Put the fictional aspect aside and consider that anything I can dream up for motivating a protagonist or antagonist must have a human element to it. This is why I ask, why do you get out of bed every morning?

I have a hard time answering that question, to be honest. Think about it; people have families, people have jobs, people have school, all manner of responsibilities, but then you have to think about the people that let those responsibilities slip, because apparently they don’t have enough inspiration to keep at it. Or on the flip side, does that mean people who spend years working at the same job are simple-minded, or to be polite, more easily entertained? Maybe they’re biding their time waiting for something better, some plans they’ve secretly made to get out of that rut. Maybe they’re perfectly happy doing what they do and are just waiting to cash in on a sweet retirement package. Maybe they do it because they just think that they’re supposed to.

Take a look at someone who claims to be religious; what are their motivations? Do they live by the tenants of their religion because they fundamentally believe that this is the right way to live, or do they do it because they ultimately want the reward and fear the punishment? Just to be clear, reward and punishment are just sanctions that happen to sit on opposite ends of a spectrum intended to provoke a desired behavior—which makes them basically equal in a wacky, postmodern kinda way.

Getting back on track here, I’ve been accused before of lacking ambition, and a) I’ve come to the conclusion that ambition is another word for motivation with a possibly wider scope, and b) the accusations usually come from someone that has apparently decided my level of motivation is unsatisfactory because it didn’t match theirs. When you get down to it, motivation is relative, and since I sometimes have such a hard time identifying my own, I wonder if how I imagine someone else’s is way off base.

So, why do you get out of bed every morning?