Fear and Love

Dear Blog,

I'm afraid. Looking at my life and the decisions I make, I typically behave out of fear. Everyone's actions are governed by some sort of rule or consequence. The two major ones, however, are fear and love. If you look at your major behaviors throughout the day, try and figure out why you behave as you do. A simple example would be that I look both ways before crossing the street out of fear that I would be hit by a car if I neglected to do so. A more complex example would be that I decide against dating a girl who's shown a lot of interest because I'm afraid it might not work. Between these two examples, a line must be drawn that decides when to stop acting out of fear and to start acting out of love. 

     I feel as if acting out of fear is really limiting my quality of life. Because of fear I've most likely missed out on numerous experiences and opportunities in my life, which ultimately affects how I grow as a person. This idea plagues my mind mainly because of my latest dilemma in my life; whether or not to date. I'm a 21 year old adult who has dreams and aspirations of going to grad school and furthering his career in the field he loves so much, and dating seems like the most impossible task in the world, currently. At this point in my life, the people around me also have their own dreams and aspirations and, if they hold the qualities I want in a partner, probably won't want to compromise those ideas. This makes it very difficult to find someone to be with. I start to think about my future and then theirs, and then how they may or may not coincide. And that scares me. Usually to a point where I no longer want that relationship to happen. I'm living my love life out of fear. Fear has also give me reason to date. I fear missing out on sharing my life experiences with somebody I care about. I've feared not having someone to tell my exciting news to. And I've feared not having somebody to care about what I'm doing in my life. 

      As I've gotten older and gone through my relationships, I've stared to fix some of these issues, but not all of them. I've now found validation through myself and my own accomplishments. And I've found that you can receive the same satisfaction of love and care from your close friends as you could a significant other. But why do I still strive to find that special someone? 

Sincerely, 

Your Hopeless Romantic 

Motivation or Lack Thereof

Dear Blog,

         Sorry I haven't written to you in a while. Things have been weird and I haven't had the motivation to do much besides video games. Which is what I want to talk about today; motivation. Every day, it seems, I think about the word motivation and what it means to me. My thoughts on it are as pretty plain as they can get. Motivation is what keeps you driven and what makes you accomplish what you dream to accomplish. The only problem is, how do I obtain it?

          I've asked this question before on social media. The responses I received were pretty typical and nothing I hadn't already known. They all make sense and I understand that the words of advice they gave me can help, but they haven't. The problem I'm having with motivation is entirely that; motivation. I'm motivated but not in the direction I need to be. I'm motivated to nap, to procrastinate, to engage in social activity, and to even sit and play video games for six hours straight. The reason behind all of it is obvious, especially from a behavioral point of view. Those things are reinforcing to me. I want to nap because I'm tired. Video games are a fun escape. Social activity is validating and carefree. All of them don't involve a lot of work, or any at all. So how do I take the things I need to do, like homework, work, chores, and make them just as reinforcing as the non-productive items? Again, from a behavioral point of view, you reinforce them. And again, I ask, how? How do you make reading 50 pages of dry text for a class you couldn't care less about reinforcing? How do you make writing five to ten pages on a topic you don't like reinforcing? A lot of people say to use the end goals as a reinforcement but as I've seen countless times before, long-term goals and rewards are not as effective at reinforcing as short-term goals and rewards. Typically, behaviors need to be reinforced as soon as possible. The more time between that behavior and the reinforcer, the less reinforcing it will be. So my question for the public is, what kind of practical reinforcers could you use?


Warm Regards,

Josh

On a side note, since I'm awful about updating routinely, if you care to know when I post and such there's an option somewhere on this blog to follow me so you are alerted when I actually write something. Thank you to those that have actually kept up with my thoughts. I write these to get things off my mind and the feedback is just an added bonus.