Motivation

Motivation - To Provide with a motive (Reference: Funk and Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary) Motivation - The act or the incidence motivating; the state or condition of being motivated . Motivate – Incite; impel (Reference: Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary)

     Those were a lot of words just to describe something so simple as, getting geared up. My dad was a great motivator. He used to say “move,” and if you didn’t, he motivated us with a razor strap. You probably have no idea what a razor strap is. Well, for those that don’t know, back when they used a thing called a straight razor ( a very sharp knife sharpened like a surgical blade) to shave with, and it started to get too dull to cut those wicked whiskers we men get, the razor strap was removed from its hook on the wall. The razor was moved back and forth across the surface of the strap, with the sharp part moving away from the surface so it wouldn’t cut into the leather, and that action sharpened the razor to a surgical sharpness.

     Now the lesser known use for that heavy leather strap was to motivate my brother and me when we needed motivated. Mom was a pretty good motivator too. Whenever we said something that we should not say, she motivated us to a better use of our mouths by putting part of a bar of soap in it. Let me tell you that in those days, with that soap…well you get the idea.

     In this so-called civilized world, that we live in today, we have so many motivation devices you can’t count them. A quick example might be these; Intimidation, Fear, Starvation, Desire, Success, lack of Success, Talent, Illness, Love, Hate, Health Concerns, Spanking, Time- outs. How many times have you said to yourself something like, I’ll starve before I eat that! Most of us have said it, but we didn’t mean it. Starving is the last thing we would really do, and if we were reaching that point, we would be MOTIVATED to eat whatever it was we said we would starve before consuming. Several years ago I wrote my first book. It wasn’t much of a book, just a book of poems describing different occupations. The motivation for writing that little book was my wife who asked, "Why don’t you answer those kids that you meet at the school crossings with a book of answers? I answered, what questions? (I was a school crossing guard at the time.) She said, “You are always telling me that they ask you why the workers that they see wear different clothing, or do different things.” In this case, The kids MOTIVATED her, through their questions to me. She MOTIVATED me to write the book. Unfortunately, no one motivated people to read it, so the book was not very successful. Perhaps I should have worked harder on the Motivation Factor. (see next week)