Motivated?

I am having a great deal of trouble becoming motivated lately.

Motivated: To be provided with a motive; impelled.

Motive (n): Something (as in a need or desire) that causes a person to act. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/)


So my choices (by motive) is that I lack a need or desire. Interesting as well that motivated is to be provided with a motive; I suppose that is where the concept of self-motivated comes from (I provide my own motive).


Lack a need? Surely continuing to support a family and have food, clothes and shelter should constitute a need. The problem with a need is that it only provides the motivation because it has to be completed. Trying to maintain a long term motivation based on filling the lowest common denominator would, I think, eventually prove demotivating in the long run.

Lack a desire? Oh, I have plenty of desires. The difficulty with counting on these as motives is that they do not occur in a vacuum, especially for someone married and with children. Fulfilling these desires always takes place in the context of the shuffling realities of the greater unit around me; thus, I can motivate myself through pictures and "powerful self-imaging" about something that I want - a new car, for example - but the reality of that getting fulfilled based on all the other factors of my life is fairly small.

So maybe this is the question: how does one find a need (okay, purpose qualifies as a need, right?) or desire (could be any number of things) which is something that can continue to provide impetus as a long term need and/or is truly accessible as a desire not fully dependent on other circumstances around it to be fulfilled? In other words, what is a motive that can handle being thrown up against the glass walls of my life again and again and keep its shape and form, ready every morning not just to make it possible to slog through another day, but enthusiastic to do so?

It has to be here, somewhere. It only needs discovering.