Taking a lazy day

Sometimes you just have to take a lazy day to get clear of stress and frustrations. Saturday was one of those days for me. I slept in, got up around 10:00 AM. Took a long relaxing shower and wandered down to the kitchen for some coffee. Got my coffee and just relaxed on the couch with a book.
I had planned to get a lot of work done Saturday. I was going to get up early and try to get some yard work done before it got too hot. I needed to mow my yard and do some trimming of the bushes and trees on my property. But the night before, I realized just how tired I actually was. I had been running and doing “things” all week. So I just decided that I was just going to relax and take it easy. Hence the sleeping in until 10:00. Which just goes to show how tired I actually was. I usually can’t sleep past 8:00 even when I’m trying.
After waking up I ended up spending the remaining portion of the day just relaxing on my couch reading a good book. Stress and frustration just melted away.

Focus, and my life

Sunday at my church the pastor preached a message on knowing God's will for our lives. One of the points of the message that really hit me, was, focus. He said we need to focus on using the specific gifts God gave us to further his kingdom, rather than worry about what God's plan for our lives will be. In doing so, we will naturally fall into God's will for us. He also said we shouldn't assume that the plans we want for our lives are God's plans for our lives.
That really got me thinking about where my focus should be. I've been really depressed lately. Well, to be honest, I've actually been pretty depressed for several years. I have ups and downs, but lately I've been in a down spiral. For years now I've felt like I was running in place. I'm always doing something, and I'm always working hard at it. but I never seem to get anywhere useful. And what I do accomplish, never seems to be enough or seems to give me what I wanted.

Before I went to college, I had my life all planned out.
I chose a Christian college, so that I would be able to meet Christians. The plan was to find a Christian to marry to raise a family with. While that seemed to work for most of my friends, it never worked out for me. Relationships always seemed to fail long before they got anywhere near that serious. Since college, it's become even harder to meet and form relationships with Christians in the local churches. Consequently, I've been basically single for quite a long time.
I picked my major in college partially because I enjoyed it, but also because it seemed like a field that was growing. A field where demand and pay would remain high. All things to consider, if you want to support a family and have a rewarding career. Again, it didn't work out like I planed. The year I graduated, was the year after the tech stocks crashed. Jobs in IT were hard to find, unless you had experience. I did find a job, but the pay was not what I would have wanted. Even now, with the industry having recovered, pay scales are not what I had planned for. And as much as I love my current job, to be honest the pay is not great.
For the past few years, I've basically gone nowhere. My pay is higher than when I started working, but still pretty close to entry level. I'm still single, and currently have no prospects for changing that. Even my close friends are drifting farther and farther apart from me, as they get on with their lives and begin raising their families. No matter how hard I've tried to change things, I never seem to get any closer to my goals.

I've begun to think that my focus has been wrong all along. I've been focused on trying to accomplish my goals for my life, but maybe those goals aren't God's goals for my life. Maybe that is why I am not satisfied and at peace, even when it seems like I am accomplishing things towards my goals. That isn't to say that God doesn't want me to get married and have a family, or that he doesn't want me to have a successful career. All I'm saying is that maybe my focus shouldn't be simply working towards accomplishing those goals. Rather, it should be on being open to what God wants me to do.
I'm not exactly sure what I should be doing, but I'm going to try to change the focus of my life toward God's focus as much as I can. A good start would probably be to see where my skills and abilities can best be used in my church.

Motivation: What motivates you?

Recently I've been thinking a lot about motivation. What motivates you to do the things you do? Specifically what motivates you at your job? Is it money? Recognition? Perks? The work itself? What exactly makes you get up every morning and go to your job?
You say, that's easy. I get paid to work there, and I wouldn't go if they didn't pay me. And that's true. None of us would go to work if we weren't getting paid. After all, we all have bills to pay and we need to eat. But that isn't the whole picture either.

So aside from being able to pay bills, why your current job over some other job? When you are at work, what makes you more eager to do certain jobs, rather than other jobs? What makes you feel satisfied with the work you are doing?

Everyone has different things that motivate them. For some, the motivation is money. They work harder in anticipation of bonuses and pay raises. For others, work needs to challenge them. If it doesn't challenge their abilities, then it becomes a drag. They always need to be learning or trying something new. For still others, it's the work environment. Interacting with their fellow coworkers and customers makes them feel alive and excites them. Some people, like my brother, need for things to be a competition. They have to be the best, and will work as hard as they have to in their job to "be the best."

For me, it's not any of the reasons I listed above. Sure, money is important, and it's nice to have a challenge. And who doesn't want to be the best? But for me it's responsibility. I need to be "needed." Knowing that people are depending on me pushes me to work harder. I have to know that people are counting on me to be there on time, and to get things done on schedule. It's having people come to me for help and assistance, that really motivates me to try harder and do a good job.

So I ask again, What motivates you?

By the way, the picture above is from Despair.com They have a lot of other un-motivational posters and calendars that are pretty funny.