An Engine Of Motivation

Essays

Aug 27

When I was a new driver, I used to drive on the Saw Mill Parkway in Westchester. It seemed like the lanes were built for bicycles as I veered ever closer to the concrete divider. The only way I could stop sweating was to pretend I was Cole Trickle in Days of Thunder. With each car I passed, I was moving up in the race. I still don’t like driving on the Saw Mill.

When I became a prosecutor in Broward County, I started doing trials on my first day. I brought in a small TV to watch DUI videos in my office, but soon realized I could use it for a more motivational purpose. Before jury selection and closing arguments, I would watch the courtroom scenes in A Few Good Men over and over. I guess Tom Cruise is my sherpa.

I didn’t watch Terms of Endearment to prepare for my mom to die. Nothing can prepare you for that, even when you watch it occur slowly over several years. Anything that is not a death sentence is hope, and that fishing line is always slipping through your fingers. You can’t get motivated to accept death.

I watched Hoosiers a lot before I went outside to shoot around for hours. When I say for hours, I mean for hours. I would be out there some days for four or five hours, recreating leagues in my head and imitating my favorite players. It never got old. Neither did Gene Hackman’s coaching. Growing up without the Internet, it was movies that fired me up.

I used strange things as motivation in the past, almost as if they were excuses. When a relationship wasn’t going well, and I wanted to break up, I would wait for my girlfriend to mention it, and then I would take hold of that mention like Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger. It was weak of me, but it was the push I needed to wriggle myself out of an uncomfortable situation. It flicked the switch.

Sometimes, it’s the subtle things that make us see the writing on the wall. Sometimes, we wear blinders so thick that the first line of the eye chart seems blurry to us. Sorry, Doc, I can’t make that out because it’s not something I want to see right now. I never liked wearing glasses.

I worked out for twenty-six minutes before I ate this morning. That’s a baby step in the right direction. Tomorrow, the train can only go two ways. Forward or backward. There is no standing still.