Motivation comes in different shapes and sizes. Before Abraham Lincoln was elected president, he lost seven elections for public office. Thomas Edison tried over 2,000 experiments before he got his light bulb to work. Col. Sanders was rejected by over 1,000 restaurants before he found one interested in his secret recipe. Obviously, to be successful you not only need motivation, you need plan B.



In 1950 Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India and spread her missionary work into 123 countries. She spent 40 years ministering to the poor, orphaned, sick and dying - work which won her the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize for Humanity. Mother Teresa said she knew God wouldn't give her anything she couldn't handle. However, she also said she wished God didn't trust her so much. Well, I'm no Mother Teresa. Laziness is my motivator. The sooner I get something done, the sooner I can be lazy again.

My grandmother didn't approve of laziness. She called motivated people farmers because they grew things like ideas and achievements. She called unmotivated people wheelbarrows because they had to pushed by farmers. Well, Grandmother, I'm still farming; but as I get older, I'm leaving more and more of my fields fallow.

More and more women are going into previously male-dominated fields like medicine, law and engineering. That's the good news. The bad news is that studies show this is causing women to have an increased risk of heart disease. This makes me wonder if stay-at-home dads have an increased risk of bedtime headaches.

All parents tell their children they can't have dessert unless they eat their dinner - but dessert isn't just for after dinner anymore. A blueberry muffin has 420 calories, which makes it a breakfast cake. A caramel frappuccino has more calories than three scoops of ice cream and a pop tart is equivalent to a slice of chocolate cream pie for the toaster. We may think healthy eating is a motivator, but actually we're getting our just desserts.

Whatever motivates us changes as we change. Motivators like ice cream and candy change to money and driving the family car. These change to a desire for success, which changes to a desire for security - which means money again. Throughout my adult life, however, I've been continually motivated by one thing - a mechanized, electrified and now computerized motivation stimulator, which was invented in 1787 - the alarm clock.