Dec. 5th and I'm back on the subject of motivation

(This is a speed-post...)

All quiet on the eastern Ontario/western Quebec front.

I lie like a cheap rug. It's anything but quiet, with papers and exams bearing down on the school. It's a time to crunch down and get things done. It's a time of putting self-doubt aside and get things done. It's a time to get motivated to get things... well, you get the picture.

I'm still not sure what motivation is, nor how to spark it. As it is, I'm too wasted from 3 months of breakneck-speed learning to really come to grips with anything useful. I'm about to crash and I know it. I'm powering through as I used to do in the "olden days."

I am, thankfully, a far cry from those days now. I'm not depressed nearly as often and seem to have found a purpose in life. Doesn't make it any easier to get motivated. Neverheless, there is hope. Perhaps this time the cost to my psyche isn't going to be quite as high. Maybe it won't be followed by a depressive episode of epic proportions - as it was in years past.

Speaking of depression, I had a bit of a chat with a friend of mine yesterday on the subject. She was tired of this one guy, a neighbour, foisting his depressive state of affairs and decided to "call his bluff". She took out a kitchen knife and slammed it on the table and said: "you want to off yourself, just do it now! I won't stop you."

I tried to stay stoic. I really did. I simply asked her: "do you have any idea what depression actually is?" She replied, of course, that she did. I found this suspect since she'd not been depressed a single day in her life, but hey, she's a nurse of several decades experience, so she knows better, right?

Perhaps she did know this neighbour rather well. Perhaps she knew it was time to call his bluff as it were - a choc therapy of somesort. Me? Hell, I was just glad she got lucky. The neighbour didn't pick up the knife - clearly he wasn't at the bottom end of a depressive episode.

First I thought it was her wisdom taking action in wanting to choc him "out of it", then I thought it was her being fed up with him, then I just settled on arrogance. My current program of study is teaching me to remain humble in my interactions with my clients. I inherently understood the well-founded of this approach, but yesterday I was shown in no uncertain terms that humility is, in fact, the proper way to go.

I knew a young man, a little while back, who eviscerated himself with a kitchen knife, right in front of his wife. I was about to describe this situation to my friend when I reconsidered. Would there have been a point? Honestly, I feared that her answer might have been that he was "meant" to kill himself - and good riddance. If such is the case, I really don't want to know. I really, really don't.

I decided instead to take that knowledge and realize that there are well-meaning forces out there that can kill you in a blink of an eye...

This simply re-established my resolve to use my powers for good.

Oh wait... maybe that's what motivation is about?