Motivations

In the course of a lifetime motivations become much more important than what you actually did or accomplished. Because "Why" you did what you did allows you to live with the full consequences of all your actions. And if you don't think your motivations were admirable it makes it very hard to live with yourself.

For example, When I was born Truman was president and TV's (black and whites and small) were the only TV's available. The first person in my family to have a TV was my grandfather who bought it in 1952 so he could watch the Republican Convention and watch then General Eisenhower Speak. By the 1960s my grandfather was in his 80s and in 1960 I was 12 and in 1970 I was 22. Everything had changed into something else than it had been during the 1950s. I had started working at jobs starting with being a newspaper boy on my bicycle and delivering a route when I was 10. This then led to other jobs like digging ditches on weekends for 1 dollar an hour with bleeding blistered hands. But this also led to many friendships and new experiences. The next phase was the late 1960s. In 1964 I bought my first car a station wagon, a 1956 Ford Stationwagon that I bought for 600 dollars in 1964 within a month after I got my driver's license the day I turned 16. I bought the car with money I had earned myself working at various jobs and also weekends and summers working for my Dad as an Electrician's helper. This was my surf wagon that I put my surfboards in along with my friends boards for driving to the beach and surfing and for SCUBA diving or whatever else interesting that I found to do back then.

But, I think the main point I'm trying to get across here is that in life everything is constantly changing. The people, places, jobs, Presidents, comedians, actors, cars, girlfriends and friends and jobs. Everything keeps changing until your head starts spinning from all the changes you have had to endure. So, in some ways at some point if you survive all this long enough what remains is this, "Can you live with the decisions you made in your life based upon your motivations?" If the answer is "Yes" then you have developed enough integrity to survive on in your life. If, however, the answer is "No" then you might not be around very much longer because if you can't live with your motivations which are at the core of your every decision in life then life might not be possible for you.

So, in your life always remember you will have to live with whatever you do the rest of your life and the core of this is always whatever your motivations were at the time. Because, even though things may have turned out right or wrong or whatever, you only have to live with what you were thinking at the time and whether those were noble thoughts and feelings or not.