You know what tended to motivate me? It was reading stories about people that overcame tremendous odds to survive, to make it despite their difficulties.
Every time I felt like quitting, I would think of those that survived the USS Indianapolis sinking or those who were forced to built the Trans Siberian Railroad, or of Shackleton's men trapped on the frozen island who never gave up.
Even the fantasy tales of my youth motivated me, like:
John Henry said to his captain, a man ain't nothing but a man, but before I let that steam drill beat me down, oh, I'll die with this hammer in my hand.
Growing up, when ever I expressed a difficulty, my father would always say, "But you can handle it can't you", and the answer would always be yup.
I memorized things like Tennyson's Ulysses, when I was young, and Act 3 Scene I of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
Tennyson's Ulysses:
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
You know what tended to motivate me? It was reading stories about people that overcame tremendous odds to survive, to make it despite their difficulties.
Every time I felt like quitting, I would think of those that survived the USS Indianapolis sinking or those who were forced to built the Trans Siberian Railroad, or of Shackleton's men trapped on the frozen island who never gave up.
I memorized things like Tennyson's Ulysses, when I was young, and Act 3 Scene I of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Even the fantasy tales of my youth motivated me, like:
John Henry said to his captain, a man ain't nothing but a man, but before I let that steam drill beat me down, oh, I'll die with this hammer in my hand.
Growing up, when ever I expressed a difficulty, my father would always say, "But you can handle it can't you", and the answer would always be yup.
Tennyson's Ulysses:
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.