Motivation

Profound Thought: "No matter what he does, every person on Earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it." -- Paulo Coehlo, Brazilian novelist When we ordinary people think about the great inventors, scientists, business moguls, writers, explorers and leaders from history it would be easy to conclude that our own lives are small and insignificant. We are not in the same league as Leonardo da Vinci, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Thomas Edison, Thomas Jefferson, Bill Gates or the other great achievers we have heard about. A diligent researcher could list 20,000 humans whose achievements have been dramatic and remarkable. But 20,000 is a small number when compared to the 10 billion humans who have lived to adulthood in the saga of humankind. This line of thinking suggest that the most notable movers and shakers among us number only 2 people out of each million. How significant are the rest of us? Well, let's take a look. Each of the 20,000 anointed ones had parents, grandparents, great grandparents and so forth. Without parents there never would have been a Marie Curie or Howard Hughes or John Paul Getty. Nor do great people operate in a vacuum. How large was the supporting cast that made it possible—one idea piled on another...plus all the teachers, suppliers and other necessary community members—for Guglielmo Marconi to be credited with inventing radio or Orville and Wilbur Wright to be credited with inventing the airplane? Written history doesn't extend back to the time when the wheel or agriculture or animal husbandry were invented or when metals were first refined and shaped into cutting implements. The path that led humanity to where we are today is interwoven with more complexity than anyone can possibly imagine. Who would have worked on developing computers or software if there were not a market for these devices. Yes, the public plays a role. We are consumers. We are the fabric of society. We matter. The telescope would have been invented with or without Galileo. Dynamite would have been developed with or without Alfred Nobel. Alfred Einstein made a giant intellectual leap in 1905 when he published his first paper on special relativity. But this concept would have been figured out by someone else if Einstein had not beaten the others to the punch. As Paulo Coehlo says, we all play a role. Whether a man dies on a battlefield or lives in poverty in Africa or teaches chemistry at a university in America, in each case he is a part of the whole. No one man or woman is 100% essential. The Apollo 13 movie could have been made with or without Tom Hanks. We are not all stars, but at least we are stagehands or extras in the drama of life. In some way—even if it's obscure and unnoticed, we all matter. Moreover, we sometimes find ourselves in a position where change is possible. An interesting hand is dealt to us. When those circumstances come along, we can change our position, our role and our prosperity. Motivation is a tool we use to influence the way we play the cards that are dealt to us.