# Core Motivating Life Principles thread - please share!



## macky (Jan 25, 2015)

Hi all

Considering the forum section where this thread is posted, I'm hoping this is relevant to you :smile2:

But I thought it would be great hearing what your high-level "core life principles" are that drive and motivate you into not giving up, but instead continuing to strive for the best.

For me they may include, and in no particular order:-


ensuring I'm always doing my best to make my family proud
making a positive contribution to this world i.e. elivate and give back more than I've taken
wanting to be the best person in the world for making the most out of life with "the cards which I (Macky) happen to be dealt with"(happy to re-explain this one if needed)

Look forward to hopefully hearing from you.

.


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## zkv (Feb 18, 2020)

"Take care of yourself, and take care of somebody else." - George Carlin


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## Johnpalment0129 (Nov 12, 2020)

Guys, I want to ask for a personal consultation. Who can give me a consultation, write to Direct!


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## truant (Jul 4, 2014)

"Try not to kill yourself. Try not to kill anyone else."

^ That's the rule I live by these days. Considering my circumstances, I'd say that's pretty positive.

I've spent most of my life trying to be the best person I can be. I'm a self-help junkie, so I'd say personal excellence has always been important to me. I push myself pretty hard (my therapist would say, "too hard"*). I'm not really interested in money; I'm interested in solving problems and making people happy, and I'd like to make the world a better (or at least more interesting) place, so I guess my "core motivating principles" don't line up with capitalism very well (probably why I'm so poor now).

My bare minimum rule is: "Do the best you can." I might fail spectacularly at everything I do (and so far I have) but at least I'll die knowing that I did everything I could and I won't die with any regrets. I think that's important. No death-bed angst, just a "thank God it's over".

* but not hard enough, apparently.


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## andy1984 (Aug 18, 2006)

motivation appears arbitrarily. I try not to bring on the apocalypse, but sometimes I wish it would come already. I had a thing for distributive justice but not now. I want to have a good time when I can, and get to know people better if I can. I dont have much luck in those things. I guess I dont want to stop watching the movie partway through, I'll keep on living till I'm dead.


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

Honestly I don't have anything.


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## Myosr (Apr 8, 2016)

I'm mostly motivated by gut-level fears of things (bad things about to happen mostly). I don't have any principles. 

Even intellectual high-level fears don't affect me either. My brain only works with immediate threats to my safety or comfort.


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## macky (Jan 25, 2015)

Thanks all who've posted so far - it was interesting to read all your thoughts.



zkv said:


> "Take care of yourself, and take care of somebody else." - George Carlin


Simple but very complete. If you're actively living this then I'm sure you're been appreciated, perhaps even more than you know.



truant said:


> "Try not to kill yourself. Try not to kill anyone else."
> 
> ^ That's the rule I live by these days. Considering my circumstances, I'd say that's pretty positive.
> 
> ...


It's inspiring that you're pushing yourself to live to the fullest, and help others in doing so - no doubt you've provided more than a helping hand to fellow forum members too (which does drive why I'm in this forum, having also gone through a very long self-help journey). Though money can be a tool for helping to support your higher-level core principles, just making money for the sake of it would always to me seem like quite an empty principle anyway. Having no regrets on my death-bed is also my driver - making sure I've done the best I could is the important thing.

I'm hoping you will make those achievements someday - and I'm sure we at this forum are happy to help offer support and advice where we can. Keep on striving.



andy1984 said:


> motivation appears arbitrarily. I try not to bring on the apocalypse, but sometimes I wish it would come already. I had a thing for distributive justice but not now. I want to have a good time when I can, and get to know people better if I can. I dont have much luck in those things. I guess I dont want to stop watching the movie partway through, I'll keep on living till I'm dead.


"Arbitrary" is an interesting way of putting it. I know motivation sometimes takes will power to adhere to, which in itself is conscious and non-automatic at times.

Whether you expected a direct response from me or not, I do see admiral aspects in this post. Certainly a respectable contribution to this thread - and I wish you more luck on managing to experience these things you mention wanting (don't worry - I won't be offering unsolicited advice).



Persephone The Dread said:


> Honestly I don't have anything.


Fair enough. Out of curiosity, are there any principles you generally live by? If fears and anxiety weren't a factor, would there be anything that you _wouldn't_ do (as opposed to "couldn't" do)? Are there lines that you wouldn't cross?



Myosr said:


> I'm mostly motivated by gut-level fears of things (bad things about to happen mostly). I don't have any principles.
> 
> Even intellectual high-level fears don't affect me either. My brain only works with immediate threats to my safety or comfort.


Interesting perspective. So would you consider your motivations to be instinctive and reactionary? Also, do you just deal with these as they come, or do you ever try to mitigate the chances of these happening?


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## andy1984 (Aug 18, 2006)

macky said:


> "Arbitrary" is an interesting way of putting it. I know motivation sometimes takes will power to adhere to, which in itself is conscious and non-automatic at times.


 hence arbitrary. if motivation comes from will power, where does will power come from? motivation comes from will power which comes from fortitude(?) which comes from X which comes from Y which comes from Z which comes from the void. "If you look long enough into the void, the void begins to look back through you."

but anyway i didn't emphasize enough how important not bringing on the apocalypse is, which you'd think would be obvious but people seem to enjoy ruining things. its the only motivation that has consistently produced actions for me, even if they only exist in the background now. what is the point of gaining social status and luxury items etc when the people enjoying the apocalypse will curse your memory and even others now who are against the apocalypse will curse you as a useless trump-like idiot.


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

@macky

I think I meant to think about that more and edit the post but I'm still mostly blank. I'd like to think I wouldn't kill someone and things like that. There's a lot of stuff that's hard to imagine because you don't know what you'll do until you're in that exact situation.

Expanding on this more would probably be unsuitable for this section of the forum lol so.

Ultimately anything I could write here would have to be hypothetical. I barely exist.


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## truant (Jul 4, 2014)

macky said:


> It's inspiring that you're pushing yourself to live to the fullest, and help others in doing so - no doubt you've provided more than a helping hand to fellow forum members too (which does drive why I'm in this forum, having also gone through a very long self-help journey). Though money can be a tool for helping to support your higher-level core principles, just making money for the sake of it would always to me seem like quite an empty principle anyway. Having no regrets on my death-bed is also my driver - making sure I've done the best I could is the important thing.
> 
> I'm hoping you will make those achievements someday - and I'm sure we at this forum are happy to help offer support and advice where we can. Keep on striving.


I'm sort of uncomfortable about being "inspiring". I think I'm mostly motivated by a desire to prove other people wrong. When I was younger, people told me to kill myself, and being a contrarian, I refused to give them the satisfaction. So it's more that the more people (and life in general) push me down, the more I resent it and the harder I push back. I'm not sure that's necessarily the kind of thing other people should find inspiring because it doesn't always come from a good place.

As far as the money goes, I don't really have a problem with pursuing it and accumulating it (I would if I could), it's that I have no interest in merely existing as a wage-earner, so there's no incentive for me to get a regular job. I'm either solving intellectual/artistic problems or I don't see the point of existing at all. That's mostly because--being the way I am--job satisfaction is the only kind of satisfaction available to me. If I have to work a job I hate, my life is literally not worth living. The reasons for that are too complicated to go into here. Unfortunately for me, I can't get paid to solve the kind of problems I'm trying to solve.

And thanks.


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## either/or (Apr 27, 2020)

At this point the only real motivation I have in life is to do the bare minimum necessary to keep my job. Otherwise I'm just coasting, in all aspects. This includes adhering to (or even just having) any kind of guiding values in my life. I used to have principles but that was A) before reality and the universe decided crush my soul and B) before I learned no one else really has any principles so what's the point? So I mostly just seek pleasure wherever I can find it and sorta check out otherwise because nothing has really panned out for me. Why bother believing in anything if nothing and no one believes in you?


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## donistired (Nov 29, 2018)

- to try and be a better person
- to be a person loved
- to listen well 
- to be a truthful person
- to write things and find out what's in me
- to stop alienating people
- to try to make alienated people feel less 
alienated
- to try and get people who alienate people
to stop alienating people
- to see myself redemptively
- to see my enemies redemptively 
- to be careful with labels like "enemies" 
- to be careful with labels
- to not reduce other human beings 
- to love myself and love others
- to be as authentic as I can be
- to give the world my world
even if it turns out my world is nothing
more or less than a story 
- to tell and read stories in hopes that
stories by there very nature can cultivate 
empathy in the world. 
- to try and be self-aware of my own
absurdities
- to try and give people the kindness I
always wanted from the world
- to live confessionally and openly
- to pay attention to people on my
periphery
- to create a space where anyone who is
seen with contempt or seen as weak is
permitted to exist and cherished.
- to not give in to my own militant despair
- to live driven by notions of wonder and
hope
- to live driven by notions of grace
- to try and be "good" 
- to try and figure out what's good, true, 
and beautiful
- to become participant in life and not just 
an observer
- to pull the record on all violence and
throw it to the wall 
- to become a public nuisance 🙂 
- to quit living in shame despite my only
minimal progress
- to accept myself as I am right now because I can only ever be what I am right now no matter how much I want fast change right now 
- to collect new words, lyrics, and turns of phrase that can help me think
- to treat every voice like a sacred voice
- to live well


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

I think this sort of sums it up maybe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie


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## zkv (Feb 18, 2020)

macky said:


> Simple but very complete. If you're actively living this then I'm sure you're been appreciated, perhaps even more than you know.


Correcto. The problem is sustaining the attitude. It's a big problem for me.


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## harrison (Apr 14, 2012)

Nowadays mostly survival. I like to keep waking up.

I never really gave all this other stuff much thought tbh - I just live my life as best I can.


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## macky (Jan 25, 2015)

donistired said:


> - to try and be a better person
> - to be a person loved
> - to listen well
> - to be a truthful person
> ...


Hi Donistired - if you did indeed type all this then thank you very much for the time and thought taken. I think I notice some specific goals too. "create a space" sounds particularly interesting.

I wish you the best in your endeavors.


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## bent (Aug 4, 2005)

don't really have any


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## macky (Jan 25, 2015)

Persephone The Dread said:


> I think this sort of sums it up maybe:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie


thanks for providing the link - I think I got the gist of it. For you personally, is anomie a way of life you're now actively pursuing, or is it something you've just come to accept as part of who you are?


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

@macky

Oh no that's just a description and I don't see it as a way of life it's just what happens if you're a certain kind of person within culture. You don't get socialised effectively or whatever and you can't integrate.


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## macky (Jan 25, 2015)

andy1984 said:


> hence arbitrary. if motivation comes from will power, where does will power come from? motivation comes from will power which comes from fortitude(?) which comes from X which comes from Y which comes from Z which comes from the void. "If you look long enough into the void, the void begins to look back through you."
> 
> but anyway i didn't emphasize enough how important not bringing on the apocalypse is, which you'd think would be obvious but people seem to enjoy ruining things. its the only motivation that has consistently produced actions for me, even if they only exist in the background now. what is the point of gaining social status and luxury items etc when the people enjoying the apocalypse will curse your memory and even others now who are against the apocalypse will curse you as a useless trump-like idiot.


Well, motivation may not always be arbitrary - particularly if driven by natural instincts (or an external influence).

With that being said, if you feel you're actions may determine a future event (like the apocalypse) and so decide to base your actions according to how would influence this event... then yes this can be argued to be an arbitrary motivation.


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## andy1984 (Aug 18, 2006)

macky said:


> Well, motivation may not always be arbitrary - particularly if driven by natural instincts (or an external influence).
> 
> With that being said, if you feel you're actions may determine a future event (like the apocalypse) and so decide to base your actions according to how would influence this event... then yes this can be argued to be an arbitrary motivation.


but instincts are just as arbitrary as values


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## macky (Jan 25, 2015)

harrison said:


> Nowadays mostly survival. I like to keep waking up.
> 
> I never really gave all this other stuff much thought tbh - I just live my life as best I can.





either/or said:


> At this point the only real motivation I have in life is to do the bare minimum necessary to keep my job. Otherwise I'm just coasting, in all aspects. This includes adhering to (or even just having) any kind of guiding values in my life. I used to have principles but that was A) before reality and the universe decided crush my soul and B) before I learned no one else really has any principles so what's the point? So I mostly just seek pleasure wherever I can find it and sorta check out otherwise because nothing has really panned out for me. Why bother believing in anything if nothing and no one believes in you?





Queneluvr said:


> don't really have any


Thank you all for contributing. I won't try to address individual points (unless if you want me to).

I hope you dont mind however, me asking from a different angle... but is there anything you'd like to be known for - At the very least, you'd be glad people saw _that[/] in you?

Overall, I think I'm asking about core values, or even a kind an honour code you follow - ones for which you might be disappointed with yourself if your life actions overall contradicted.

Even in regards to this forum, this maybe an impression that makes fellow SAS forum members think "this person deserves better in life than how life currently seems to be treating them"._


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## Blue Dino (Aug 17, 2013)

Focus on how to solve a problem, rather than whining at the unfairness for the problem to have befallen on you in hopes someone will see the distress of your whining and swoop in themselves to solve the problem for you themselves. 

For some, things will just keep throwing you down and endlessly keep on kicking you as you're down no matter what. And you just to have fight your way to stand back up, and in turn punch down at whatever is throwing you down and keep kicking you when you're down to make sure it stays down. And do the same at each gradual thing that comes along that does the same to you. 

Focus on yourself in how you progress gradually, rather than how your progress strictly measures up to the progress of others. (Although this probably doesn't apply in the harsh reality that your own progress is strictly dependent and can be obstructed if your progress is in competition with that in relative of others. The real world just plain sucks).


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