motivation.....

Under the stark florescent lights of the classroom found amongst the labs and library of the science building at the university, I stood in front of my evening class conducting the increasing ebb and flow of the discussion on motivation. Tentative at first, no one wanted to initiate..... to offer their opinions on the questions I had lobbed out as thinking calisthenics.

Who inspires you?

Where does motivation come from?

Most of them remained quiet.... but I could see their ticking brains working. I could feel a change in the classroom. To generate a sense of safety, I shared a few of my own stories ... quick sketches of one or two people who inspire me. I chose carefully as I tried to open up the way to sharing.

Who do you motivate? Who do you inspire?

Where does motivation come from?

Energy was being stirred under those artificial lights. This was new to them.... to be asked such questions .... to be asked their opinions in a classroom on something personal.... to step out a bit into a place of vulnerable openness. In all the years they have been attending university, rarely have they been asked to move the desks to form an open circle forum as a full class to share their personal feeling stories. No one has prompted them to reveal this stuff. They have told me so.

I stretch the silence past the comfort zone to offer them room to grow.  Room to generate their thoughts and perhaps find a story from the pictures in their personal memories.

Pause......... a question ............ pause ........... room to grow.

Who in your life motivates you? How does it make you feel?

 What if there is no one in the whole world to pump you up..... to fill you with hope, what then? 

Where does the drive come from? 

When you are at your lowest ebb, where does the incentive to rise up come from?

More silence..........a smiling kind.  I wait for this very quiet class to find a voice, and wonder if they will ever offer up something for the story collection plate.  

Is motivation more important if it is intrinsic or extrinsic?

Inside or from the outside?

I knock it up a notch by introducing them to Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, who wrote a terrifyingly powerful autobiographical book entitled Night. It was a descriptive account of unrelenting suffering while trying to survive living in a Concentration camp. I described how he and others, including his father were forced to walk many kilometers in a snowstorm at night after days without any food, after months and months of being worn down physically, spiritually, emotionally, dressed in threadbare clothes, stripped of humanness.

Elie Wiesel and his father kept moving foward, one painful step at a time, not knowing where they were going, not knowing if they could find the stamina to continue, fearful that if they slowed down, they would be trampled by the moving herd of humanity. Men dropped dead all around them, left in the accumulating snow. Somehow he and his father kept breathing .... kept alive under the most horrendous circumstances.

What can we learn from the stories of human beings who have faced adversity beyond our comprehension? How did this man at age 16 find the fortitude to keep alive, I asked? Where does motivation come from? Why is it important to read stories about real people and real events even if they are jarringly disturbing? Or should I say ..... ESPECIALLY if they are jarringly disturbing??

I shared my thoughts with the class as a way to guide them into looking inside. This man's story stirred my feelings, filling the air with purposeful feeling words...... as a way to guide them into looking inside themselves. What was reflected back to me from their looks, faces....? Rapt attention. I could feel the energy behind the silence. Churning thoughts, touched upon feelings.

"Where did this man's motivation come from?"  I asked, not really knowing the answer.  I shared a Jean Vanier quote and told them about his work with L'Arche.  "When we tell stories, we touch hearts. If we talk about theories and speak about ideas, the mind may assimilate them but the heart remains untouched. It is the story of a specific person that is the way to the heart."  Jean Vanier's values and proactive being motivates me daily, I told them. 

Thoughts, opinions and most importantly, stories came pouring out... they let go of their self-conscious protection. Their doubts about sounding stupid were replaced by sharing opinions, feelings, and a few personal stories. Comfort in the cocooning feeling of belonging began to happen at that moment..... under the stark florescent lights. 

Motivated to share.  Motivated to listen to one another's offerings.......they transformed an institutional classroom into a place where hearts were being touched.  It was magical. Comfort can happen anywhere if people are engaged.  Comfort to feel discomfort..... to learn and to grow.
 

As I drove home that night, my head full of thoughts and feelings on what had been shared, I was lifted to a place of inspiration where everything seems possible. It seems to happen every Tuesday night this fall.  I love teaching.