On motivation

A favorite idiom of mine is that of the carrot and the stick: a metaphor for postive & negative reinforcement on behavior, mostly in the context of motivational tools.

Time spent examining the carrot front and center robs it of its seemingly mystical power. And equal periods spent in pain from a stick once stiff and perhaps still so, however now numbs the backside. What to do when the mushiness of a now almost ghostly carrot repulses what was once a main attraction? What to do when ambivalence toward pain inspires a hope, even leaves one wishful of pain’s return?

Where, oh where, did my carrot and stick go?

Motivation at it’s core happens when there is a ‘carrot’ or ‘stick’ present in some manifestation. Perhaps the carrot is mushy, or the stick feels like a feather. But for things to be done there must be one or both present in some form.

AA: But you can’t always be motivated to do things! Sometimes you need to take action preemptively before motivation enters!

Right. Thank you. But this fails to account for all the manifestations of carrots or sticks that would cause one to take action. Perhaps there must be a phantom carrot before a calorie appears! Unless of course, it is possible that something can truly be done for absolutely no reason. And ‘absolute’ here is used absolutely. Which I absolutely don’t believe.

It feels silly to lack even the motivation for motivation’s beginning. I refuse to entertain the carrots or others or bear their sticks. But perhaps Fortuna needs time to return to me a carrot and a stick… perhaps this is just the morsel of carrot I am given at this moment.