I had another interesting discussion with P yesterday about motivation. He's been sneakily eliciting my motivation and achievement strategies and he presented them back to me yesterday and they were spot on. He also called me out on some self-deluding BS I had been running myself into: that motivation does not exist.

Taking his advice, I took things to a higher logical level. So, motivation does not exist. But motivation does exist. Why? Well… because most things require a reason why. And these reasons why are usually massive drivers of emotional force that propel people towards what they want. At this higher logical level, a paradox exists. On the one hand, motivation does not exist. If you're going to do something you're going to do it regardless. On the other hand, motivation does exist. You are more likely to do something if you have reasons for doing it.

The way I've reconciled this in my own mind is this. Motivation does not exist. You don't need reasons to do something - you just do it. But, I can simultaneously also have reasons for doing something - reasons that generate a sort of "emotional compulsion" for doing that given thing (you can also think of this as gravitational intent in reverse). And here's the key: even without those compelling reasons, I would still do what I wanted to anyway. Not having reasons or the reasons themselves will NEVER be an excuse for not doing something.

This ability to think in terms of paradoxical realities is something I've come across recently, and it's been really interesting. To borrow a term from general semantics, it's basically "cheating reality" by having two maps of the territory at your disposal - you just pick which is the most appropriate for your situation. Well, considering that when we go out somewhere in the world we use multiple maps of all shapes and sizes… why not do the same in our own minds?

- Aaron P