Killing
Motivation
Story
1 - Laura from Peru
Story
- 2 But in China... May 20, 2007
Story 1 - Laura from Peru
I feel bad always picking
on Laura, but she is the one I am spending the most
time with so I have the most material to work with
from her. That said, here are two examples. By the
way, I talk a lot about my relationship with Laura,
so as fair warning this article is not just about
motivation.
The other day Laura and I went
to a little tourist town in Argentina called
Humahuaca. (pronounced something like "who ma wa
ka"). I said "I wonder if it is worth the
effort to go to the hotels and see if they want their
web pages translated to English." She made a
face and said "Here?" Then she said
something like "I don't think you would have
much luck in a town like this."
That completely killed my
motivation. I just sat there depressed for a very
long time. My body slumped. It was kind of the last
straw. It has been so hard traveling with her. She is
draining my energy so much. She needs so much
attention. It is like my life is devoted to meeting
her emotional needs now.
Anyhow, I didn't even have the
energy to argue or debate with her. I know there are
a lot of hotels in that town, even though it is
small, and I think there is a very good chance
someone would want their page translated to English.
But I just didn't have the energy to say anything. I
didn't have the energy to say "Well maybe not,
but could you go try a few hotels and I will try a
few?"
A few days later we were
walking past an Internet cafe. I saw someone inside.
I started looking more closely to see if it was open
or if it was just someone working there alone, and
not yet open to the public. It was around 8:20 on a
Sunday morning. Laura took one look and said
"It's closed." Then kept walking. I wasn't
sure that it was closed though, and it bothered me
that she jumped to that conclusion. She does that a
lot. She makes a negative assumption, which often is
wrong. I don't like to keep pointing out to her when
she is wrong. I don't want to enter into that kind of
competition - who's wrong, who's right. But in this
case, I felt offended by the way she jumped to her
conclusion without carefully checking. So I went to
the door and read the sign listing the hours.
Most days of the week it opened
at 8 AM. But it said nothing about Sunday. I felt
confused. Then I tried the door, just to see if by
chance I could stick my head in and ask. It opened. I
asked the guy inside if they were actually open and
he said yes. Then I asked if he knew of an Internet
open 24 hours. He said "Yes, we are." I
double checked with him to make sure I understood and
he said yes again. So I caught up to Laura and told
her that they are actually open 24 hours. She didn't
get defensive, as so many other people would who I
have known in my life. At least if she did, I didn't
notice. But neither did she realize, I don't think,
how she makes negative assumptions and fails to check
things out. Or how she is killing my motivation. Had
I believed her incorrect proclamation I would have
just kept walking and not been motivated to try the
door.
I have written before about how
the adults in Peru kill the motivation of the
children there. It is so obvious in the country as a
whole. I have written that no one there does anything
unless they are afraid of not doing it. And now I am
seeing, little by little, how Laura was taught to
think. She reminds me too much of my mother
sometimes. Too much of someone I used to date called
Colette.
I have been complaining to my
friends lately that Laura has no self-motivation.
There are so many things I want to do. I want her to
help me with them. Often she does. But if I am not
specifically asking her to do something, or doing it
with her, she does nothing. Her mind will wander back
to Peru, her mother, her ex-boyfriend, her friends
from school. I am starting to get frustrated with
her. She is not helping me now. She is hurting me and
I am seeing it more clearly. Yet since this article
is allegedly about killing motivation, I will add
that I realize that if I criticize her or start to
judge her and show disapproval for the things she is
doing, I will be guilty of killing her motivation. I
have to think carefully before I say something to
her.
She is a child really. A
damaged child in a 23 year old's body. I am a damaged
child in a 48 year old's body. I will admit that! As
sensitive, damaged children we are both very
susceptible to having our motivation killed, our
spirits crushed. Yet also like children we are
resilient. We keep trying one more time. Or maybe
this is a sign of codependency. Or both. Who is to
say!?
I don't want to kill Laura's
motivation and I don't want her to kill mine. It is a
very delicate situation. I don't want her to go back
to Peru, where I see a future full of sadness for
her, and at the same time I don't want to stay in
this codependent cycle we have been in. It is really
bringing me down. I feel depressed much of the time
when I am around her. It is hard to be around someone
who has no self-motivation. Who waits to be told
everything to do. But in Laura's case, I love her and
still need her too much too end our relationship. I
also seem to prefer to suffer myself than to see her
suffer. I don't want to hurt her by saying something
like "I need some time alone." To her, as
she thinks in black and white, this will mean total
rejection. She will go back to Peru, heart-broken and
then miss me and cry alone once again. She will go
back to an abusive mother and ex-boyfriend. I don't
want that to happen. Nor do I want to have to go back
and try once again to get her away from her
dysfunctional mother and culture. (Her mother, if you
don't know, hit her with a belt in June of last year.
That is why Laura left home to travel and live with
me.)
So I am trying to manage her
emotions, as well as mine. It is a little like trying
to manage the emotions of a five year old I knew in
Australia. I had to be very smart about it, because
she was very smart both intellectually and
emotionally. And she was very sensitive. Plus she was
already picking up negative emotions from the adults
around her. I had to treat her with respect and love.
It didn't help to try to control her with my
"authority" based on my age or physical
size. I had to find a ways to get her to do things
because she wanted to do them. Respect,
love, compassion, understanding, empathy, validation,
emotional honesty all worked with her
With Laura all of these things
also work, and I suspect they work with anyone who
has not already been damaged. Beyond that, with Laura
I am coming to the conclusion that she really loves
me, doesn't want to hurt me, doesn't like to see me
suffer. She also would rather suffer than see me
suffer, except in the times when she reverts back to
some very self-destructive ways of behaving which she
learned as a matter of survival in her violent and
emotionally insecure and invalidating home.
But back to my motivation. I am
seeing that I have to have more time alone. I feel
more motivated when I am alone than with her, sadly.
Yet if she were to leave me, I might fall back into
the deep depression I was often in before I met her.
The depression which came primarily from too much
aloneness. So I am trying to find a balance. And
trying to stay motivated in spite of her negative
conditioning.
And this is what children and
teens have to do I suppose, stay motivated in spite
of their de-motivating, spirit-killing parents and
teachers, if they are not lucky enough to have
supportive people around them. So I will end this by
saying that if you are a teenager or anyone who is
living around negative people, try to keep believing
in your own dreams. Try to stay motivated. Don't let
them kill your motivation. Keep it alive until you
can, hopefully, one day, find someone who supports
you, motivates you and even inspires you.
But till that day comes, the
most important thing is for you to find some way to
stay motivated on your own. And it helps to be aware
of those who de-motivate and discourage you. And to
avoid them or not take to heart the negative things
they say. This is hard for sensitive people from
emotionally damaging homes. I won't pretend it is
easy. And if you are a teen who can not legally leave
an unsupportive environment, then it is even harder.
Even still, I encourage you to try your best to do it
because your dreams are important, your goals are
important, your ideas are important. You are
important.
S. Hein
Salta, Argentina
Feb 12, 2006
Story 2 - But in China they don't speak
much English or Spanish
Today I was talking about my
idea of an international group of teens united for
peace. I said we could start by making a website in
Spanish and English and then find people to translate
it to other languages. I said, "Maybe later I
will travel to other countries and do the same thing,
like to China or India, who knows." Then the
person I was with said "But in China they don't
speak much English or Spanish."
This is the way adults kill a
young person's dreams and idealism. Little by little.
Comment by comment. And what makes me even sadder is
that the person who was guilty of motivation murder
in this example is just 22 years old.
This story reminds me of I a
term which I think was called "conversation
stoppers". It really pains me now to think about
how many people do this. I ask myself, "Why do
they feel the need to say something like that?"
And what is the other person supposed to do or
say?"
Another term I have heard was
"scene stealers". In this case instead of
arguing with the person and saying that someone just
told me that a backpacker who had been to China had
just told me that all the young people are learning
English now, I just said "Oh, they don't?"
as if I didn't know they didn't speak English or
Spanish in China. Then this gave the other person a
chance to talk, which is what they were looking for.
Thus they wanted to "steal the scene".
I decided to just let them
talk, because I didn't want to use the energy to
correct them or tell them I felt a little offended,
or a little judgmental, when they said that not many
people spoke Spanish in China. These are the kinds of
conversations, or non-conversations I had so many
times in Peru. And it might not be a coincidence that
the last story I wrote about killing motivation was
also about a South American, also in her early
twenties. It really scares me to think what people
like this are going to do to their children. And it
reminds me that more cultural exchanges are needed so
South Americans can get some fresh ideas.