Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Motivated Thinking: Are You Motivated?
“How old would you be, if you didn’t know how old you was?”
-Satchel Paige
This is a really good question. We need to truly ponder its depth before answering as it is certainly revealing. For example, you can answer this question merely based on how you feel at the moment. I know that there are times when I feel much younger than my age. In fact, recalling when I worked out with my son’s little league baseball practice, I could sense my youth as I threw the ball around to the team. Later, I sensed it right into my shoulder and back. Yes—those were joints not bats cracking, kids. So, maybe our physical being isn’t the same twenty years later, what about our minds? This is where the pondering gets serious. Each of our lives contains experiences that have shaped and formed our perspective. And with every new day arrives new challenges, new opportunities to invent, gain insight, and grow. As a creative person, I suppose it’s an area that I’m more sensitive to given the demands of my occupation. Always seeing each day as a fresh new canvas. I kind of feel you can also measure the age of your minds eye by how much you’ve seen. For some, life’s experiences make us feel like we’ve seen too much. Ever feel that way? Maybe looking at trends, fashions, music, you feel like you need to crawl back to your primordial cave into a fetal position? Damn, when the heck did I get so philosophical! Actually, I enjoy this stuff because I am really energized by these kind of cultural changes. Having children around helps or rather requires that you be daily immersed in these ‘pressures of our times’. So, in our minds eye we can feel a certain age, too. Then there’s the spiritual side of things. Maybe this is too intangible for your taste, but I think it’s pretty practical. There is an odd sense of presence and refined age that is difficult to describe, but ever present in each of us. This is the part of us that knows without really knowing: call it our gut. We feel like an old soul when it comes to some stuff, and yet like a new born babe on others. When I step back from my hectic life and look at the inertia from all the intersecting points (people, places and things), I sense there is some point to the chaos. There is a greater purpose for being here. That assurance, confidence and trust enables the drive and passion to keep going and growing. So how do I answer the question? I’m young enough to keep thinking about the answer.
Andy Siditsky
-Satchel Paige
This is a really good question. We need to truly ponder its depth before answering as it is certainly revealing. For example, you can answer this question merely based on how you feel at the moment. I know that there are times when I feel much younger than my age. In fact, recalling when I worked out with my son’s little league baseball practice, I could sense my youth as I threw the ball around to the team. Later, I sensed it right into my shoulder and back. Yes—those were joints not bats cracking, kids. So, maybe our physical being isn’t the same twenty years later, what about our minds? This is where the pondering gets serious. Each of our lives contains experiences that have shaped and formed our perspective. And with every new day arrives new challenges, new opportunities to invent, gain insight, and grow. As a creative person, I suppose it’s an area that I’m more sensitive to given the demands of my occupation. Always seeing each day as a fresh new canvas. I kind of feel you can also measure the age of your minds eye by how much you’ve seen. For some, life’s experiences make us feel like we’ve seen too much. Ever feel that way? Maybe looking at trends, fashions, music, you feel like you need to crawl back to your primordial cave into a fetal position? Damn, when the heck did I get so philosophical! Actually, I enjoy this stuff because I am really energized by these kind of cultural changes. Having children around helps or rather requires that you be daily immersed in these ‘pressures of our times’. So, in our minds eye we can feel a certain age, too. Then there’s the spiritual side of things. Maybe this is too intangible for your taste, but I think it’s pretty practical. There is an odd sense of presence and refined age that is difficult to describe, but ever present in each of us. This is the part of us that knows without really knowing: call it our gut. We feel like an old soul when it comes to some stuff, and yet like a new born babe on others. When I step back from my hectic life and look at the inertia from all the intersecting points (people, places and things), I sense there is some point to the chaos. There is a greater purpose for being here. That assurance, confidence and trust enables the drive and passion to keep going and growing. So how do I answer the question? I’m young enough to keep thinking about the answer.
Andy Siditsky
