I pulled up at the airport this moring at 5:30 A.M., and it never ceases to amaze me how busy and alive the Fort Lauderdale Airport is at any given moment. I couldn’t believe that it was 5:30 and there were this many people milling about. I have had some of the most interesting things happen and have taken some of best naps while traveling. Traveling on any given day is never the same experience because there are never the same circumstances. What does all of this have to do with my TED talk? I’m glad you asked. After discussing my topic with Hall, I’m thinking of looking into the topic of motivation; I’m still going to talk about running, but I’m going to weave the idea of motivation throughout my talk. Why I was thinking about my TED at 6 o’clock this morning is something that I’m still trying to figure out, but motivation was on my mind. I think it had something to do with my ruing the choice of an early flight and what motivated me to choose to fly this early. I then started to question what motivated all of these other dummies to fly this early in the morning. Is it because they are morning people? Is it because there were no other flights? Is it because the morning flight is less expensive? Did they have to get back early to go to work? Who knows, but for whatever reason, the airport was packed. The airport reminds me of an elevator because a lot of strangers are jammed into a small space for a short amount of time. Because of the tight quarters we are forced to listen to other people’s conversations and be a part of their lives, if only for a finite time. Because of this “closeness,” I feel that I am allowed to pass judgments on my pseudo-family and by doing so, try to examine what motivates their actions. For instance, there was a long line at the coffee kiosk and a man cut in line and no one said a word. Being the passive person that I am, in my mind it would take more energy to call this guy out, than to just let him stay where he so rudely inserted himself. But I was surprised that no one else said or did anything, where was our motivation? Perhaps, once we had some coffee we’d be more motivated. Then, I was drinking my coffee and waiting to board the plane, an individual with special needs was creating a raucous. The man sitting in front of me said to his family, “If he is on our flight, I’m just going to take those vouchers (the flight was overbooked and they were offering vouchers to get bumped).” I thought, “What an asshole.” I’d rather be on a flight individual who can’t control himself, than someone as ignorant as him. Why would someone say that? What could possibly have motivated him to say that? Did he think he was funny? Funny enough, I ended up sitting next to the individual who was having outbursts in the terminal. He and his mom were very pleasant seat partners; I didn’t have to listen to asinine conversations and was able to sleep in peace. I don’t know why what that man had said really bothered me. If only I had been motivated enough to say something. Motivation is a crazy thing, sometimes motivation allows us to accomplish goals, but sometimes, the only thing motivation accomplishes is making us look stupid.
Who needs motivation?
