motivation. can you locate it?

When the kids were little, they used to love to repeat certain phrases.

Usually these would be some combination of words they had heard on a show or in a book, words they had made up and lyrics from a song.

Generally the combination ended up being nonsensical to adult ears, but completely understandable in their kid language.

One phrase I recall clearly hearing them say over and over never made much sense to me then – and still doesn’t really.

They’d look seriously at one another, eyes locked, and say, in a slow, monotone voice that sounded like they were entering a trance, “Motivating. Staring.”

Like I said, it didn’t make any sense to me.

Despite its lack of logic, that goofy phrase plays on repeat in my brain whenever I’m staring at a blank screen for too long, trying to come up with the right sentence. Or when I am staring into space, trying to rally myself to do the task ahead of me.

Motivating. Staring.

We joke about this phrase and, whatever it meant to them as little kids, now it has come to mean something like, “Gaining steam. Talking myself into something. About to take action.”

I mentioned the funk recently.

From your responses, seems I’m not alone.

Lately it feels as if pretty much every task in my life is requiring me to stand in front of it and say, trance-like, “Motivating. Staring.”

Writing the next article.
Conquering the laundry.
Making a grocery list.
Going to the actual grocery store.
Cleaning the house.
Making difficult decisions.
My daily to-do list.

And it seems like this disease of funk is contagious. My kids have it too. (Maybe I caught it from them.)

All the little things feel like big things.

It’s a conscious act of will to keep saying, “Motivating. Staring.”

To do the next right thing.

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