It's hard to do work continuously, unless it's due in 3 hours and your group is relying on you to finish your part. I've never really been motivated by doing work "for myself". But that's what everyone tells you to do, to do stuff because you want to do it, not because others want you to do it. Learning is for you, not others. And that's called curiosity. Everyone is curious about different things. For example, I am not at all curious about history or art. But everything that might affect my reputation or relationships, I am curious about. So, I learn to not appear dumb. And I learn things that are relevant to people I know, such as culture. So I might google the basics of world war II, just to not appear too dumb, but I'm not actually that interested. However, if my best friend is a history major and loves a certain part of history, I would study it in depth just to discuss it with her.
When you're not motivated in life, your curiosity about everything drops pretty low, and you're just looking for answers. Answers on what you should do with your life to feel more meaningful and valuable and purposeful. This is the nature of the quarter life crisis. And the answer seems to be, to find a special person, after which everything in life suddenly seems meaningful. Even the simple routine things, like cooking and eating and walking. Everything suddenly is more enjoyable. It's magical.
I'm not sure I believe that anymore. I think for some people, it does happen that way. It might be a short-lived honeymoon phase for some, or a fairly long phase for others. It's not the answer to purpose though. As Christians, obviously we would never confess that we actually used to believe that romance was the answer to purpose, but if you dig deep, I'm sure a lot of us believe(d) the same stuff everyone else believes. which is that romance is the answer. to life.
The other lie is that career is the answer. If you just find the niche career where you can excel, then you're good. Yea. I'm sure that's what all the farmers thought 1000 years ago. A niche career being a means to purpose is an idea sponsored by middle-class-infested public schools that tell kids to reach for their dreams. And by dreams, they mean career-dreams. Why can't you be single, with a boring career, and have a fulfilling, meaningful, valuable, purposeful life in Christ? For most of the world, career is a means to live. It's just money. I've lived among the 1% for so long, that all I think about is career and relationships.
Anyway, with all that said, I do think career and relationships are important and valuable life choices. :) Just not the answer to life.
