THURSDAY MOTIVATOR - Chosen Behavior

[joeyjoe]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 10:26am

The vast majority of the things you do are not forced upon you. They are your choice.

Yes, certainly there are powerful influences on your life that are outside your control. And yet, the choice of how to respond to those influences is yours.

There are plenty of perfectly understandable reasons, rationalizations and excuses for the things you do. And yet, the actions you end up taking are the direct result of the choices you make, whether there are good reasons behind them or not.

It is indeed a demanding job to be responsible for your own behavior. It is also a magnificent opportunity.

By exercising thoughtful, purposeful control over the actions you take, you can achieve whatever you decide to achieve. By always remembering that your behavior is your choice, you can use that behavior to extremely valuable benefit, for yourself and for your world.

Before you act, remind yourself that you are in control of your actions. Then choose to take those actions that will lift you ever higher.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 11:19am

That is if you all take your meds as prescribed. Failure to do so may result in you doing things that are not in your control.
So everyone, please CHOOSE to take your meds.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 11:39am

Basically, I think this motivator is so much bullcrap. I've been thinking a lot this week about the illusions we are trained to have from an early age about the decisions we arrive at. And how in a hyper-mediated culture, many of us like to think that we're free and independent thinkers and that we have SO much control over SO many aspects of our lives.

And that's crap.

I've been thinking about this since seeing the reunion performance of post-punk pioneers Gang of Four the other night. And what they sang about captures what I've been feeling so perfectly, which is basically the antithesis of this motivator.

Greil Marcus, one of the greatest rock writers ever, wrote a great essay about Gang of Four in 1990. Which I excerpt here.

"There was something on the Gang of Four's collective mind, picked up from books, painting (Manet's especially), movies (notably Jean-Luc Godard's Numero Deux), not-so-fast R&B (George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic), and Leeds street politics (marches against the neo Nazi National Front party that ended with police violence; violent attacks by Front goons on pubs frequented by the likes of the band and their pals the Mekons and Delta 5).

"What was on their mind was the notion that everyday life-wage labor, official propaganda, the commodity system, but also the way you bought a shirt, how you made love, the feeling you had as you watched the nightly news or turned away from it-was not 'natural,' but the product of an invisible hand. It was an interested construction, someone else's project, a rulers' project. Some of the rulers were dead, some were living, but all held power. 'The attitudes and beliefs that people take as being natural,' [singer John] King said early on, 'have been inherited through the social structure they're brought up in. An example is the man who believes that women are by definition more suited to working in the home than to making decisions. The belief in the natural puts all this outside the realm of debate - and unless you have an awareness of your ideas as political manifestations, you won't believe you can change them."

"If you're not aware of the processes and thoughts by which you arrive at a statement about a situation", Gill said of the bands songs, "If you're not aware of that, you probably can't sufficiently analyse the situation".
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Updated On: 5/19/05 at 11:39 AM

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 11:50am

To each his own. I personally believe in these motivators. I believe that we have the power to lead the path that is our lives in the way we choose, and to receive whatever we want from [God, the Universe, Mother Earth...] if we truly believe in it. I truly do. We are our own worse enemies when it comes to achieving goals... example: I want that car, but I could never afford it.

Thanks joeyjoe, because whenever I read these, they seem to remind me of something that's pertinent that day and I had forgotten.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 11:52am

Oh, really? In our culture, at this time, most of us want what we get. We don't get what we want.

(a tip of that hat to Jon King for that one)

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 11:55am

Dude... I'm not picking a fight. You want to be angry... so be it. I choose not to.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 11:57am

Angry? I wasn't til you posted that!

Inhale pink, exhale blue.

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 12:06pm

Sorry... angry was probably the wrong word to use.

It's just that I DO believe in this "bullcrap".

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 12:22pm

But it's empty platitude. Real life is way much more like a Kafka novel than a Shirley MacLaine book from the mid-'80s.

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 12:29pm

Funny you should say that. MY life, personally, has been nothing like a Kafka novel and a lot more like Shirley MacLaine's book. I might not have lots of money, but I am happy, have great friends, and believe it or not, when I've asked for something, 9 times out of 10 I've gotten what I asked, and when I haven't, it's because there was something even better there for me.

But that is what is true for me. To me, it's not empty platitude, it's quite gratifying.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 12:30pm

Your screen name is duly noted.

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 12:46pm

Why, oh why, the need to slam someone. I thought this was quite an interesting conversation we were having... I was beginning to like you.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 5:01pm

'twasn't a slam, 'twas a comment.