motivating

Why do we do the things we do? It seems that if humans are the complex organisms that we pretend to be, we should be motivated by equally complex motivators, but the older I get, the more I feel like there are only two things that motivate human actions. Fear and hope.

An example: For the past month, three or four days a week, I have been getting up to the hideous shriek of my 10-year old alarm clock alarm at 6 a.m. Trying not to wake my cozily dreaming hubby, I pull on workout gear and brave the dark rainy streets to Seattle to get to Cross-fit, my latest endeavor at fitness. There, I do ridiculous things like:

-Carry a 44-lb kettlebell in each hand and walk around the block in the dark while drawing snickers from people at the bus stop (they only wish they could carry 88 lbs of metal around)
-Flip a 500-lb tire across the room (granted, with two other people)
-Ruthlessly pound the same 500-lb tire using a sledgehammer
-Double-jump rope backwards (OK, maybe this isn't too ridiculous to some)

This is all the while getting yelled at our well intentioned (we think) trainer who doesn't understand that some of us don't have fast twitch muscles. Oh yeah, and it's not cheap either. My motivation: fear. Fear of being fat. Fear of getting old. Fear of being weak. And the corollary of fear: hope. I know that I will never win any bodybuilding contests or run a 4-minute mile, but my aspirations for strength (and power, as our trainer likes to remind us) keep me going back for more.

Here's hoping that more of my actions will be guided by hope than fear.

Mina