From: Stirling Westrup (sti@cam.org)
Date: Sun Feb 20 2000 - 18:10:16 MST
Spike Jones wrote:
> What is the motivator? Why work? Why bother?
> Do we have any rich young among us who know that road?
While I did not exactly grow up rich, my folks were upper middle class and
always provided quite well for me and my brothers. We were taught the usual
things about hard work and perseverance if we wanted to survive in a hard
world.
We were also taught that mere survival isn't enough. Once "the money thing" as
you put it is taken care of, the next stage kicks in. That stage is one of
meaning in life. What do I do with my life, that I will be proud to tell my
grandchildren about? What makes me happy? What do I love? How do I justify the
resources that I use up during my life? Do I give back more to the community of
man than I take? When I look back at my achievements at the end of the day, am
I happy with what I am doing? Do I look forward to the next day as a chance to
contribute? What jobs will let me answer positively to these questions?
After 35 years of hard work, I'm just now getting to the point that I can spend
more time thinking about meaning than about survival. Todays youth are lucky
that they get to deal with the important questions earlier, but they are
unfortunate in that it takes a mature and introspective mind to answer these
questions well, and there is little guidance available from the adults around
them that are still imurred in the 'survival' mind set.
--
Stirling Westrup | Use of the Internet by this poster
sti@cam.org | is not to be construed as a tacit
| endorsement of Western Technological
| Civilization or its appurtenances.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:26:56 MST