What motivates you?

@Shiva49 Thank you.

I had made sure I was not enslaved to work for its own sake. Good to know you did not allow work to get the better of you in the sense you called the shots.

@Shiva49 Yes it keeps us going thanks Shiva. Same here, always a pleasure with you.

Thanks, Ocean Tiara, it is always a pleasure to hear from you. One misstep in life can set us back and so we need to be responsible in whatever we do.

Thanks, I recall Abba: Money, money, money Must be funny In the rich man's world Money, money, money Always sunny In the rich man's world

@Shiva49 Thank you. I will influence the people to be motivated here and there, too.

@Shavkat

Keep at it Rufo, active life and mind keep us motivated.

@Shiva49 Thanks so much. I only continued my degrees because I was able to go for free. As a faculty wife, I had many benefits. Your son must be the light of your life! I don’t blame you for putting your career on the back burner for him. I, too, stopped teaching when my boys were born. I was a stay at home mom until the oldest was in grade 7 before returning to teaching. My husband had the type of career that enabled him to be home with them when I wasn’t. No regrets are the best!

I think you did very well in your career and life itself. Two degrees beyond your master's and that means you have made more than profitable use of time not counting raising a family. Your sharp as a tack input here reflects your background. Our son was born fourteen years after our marriage and I slackened in my career thinking, what for embrace career advancement.? Then after he was born, I wanted to spend as much time as possible with him and that also meant my career went on the back burner! Then I had to look after my parents along with my brothers and that also was not conducive for a hectic career. All worked out well in the end with no regrets.

@DianneN Thank you. You have made wise choices to reach where you are now. We have to make calculated sacrifices like calculated risks to suit our outlook. My wife was a homemaker though went for part-time teaching when she felt comfortable. My son was with us till he was 16+ and then went to Australia for studies for five years. Later for a year to do Masters in London and now employed in a bank. We went around Europe in 2016 with him to celebrate his life.

I rely more on self-motivation as I know myself better.

@Shiva49 Good to know. Take care

I can understand. My way was - during office time, office work gets priority and afterwards, home gets priority. That worked reasonably well for me.

@Shiva49 Every day, though, God teases us with endless clues, which, if we have the eyes to see them, we will see his almighty hand behind. Today, I went to the Easter Church service, and I lined up in a long queue with my wife to be served the communion wafer, which is like a small biscuit. The old minister placing the wafer on my hand, placed it on the edge of my hand, and I felt it sliding off towards the floor. Perhaps, she did not see properly enough to place it on the centre of my palm, or maybe she was already tired, from all of the other placings, that she had already made, on all of those other hands, before mine came along to her. Quickly, my thumb caught it, the wafer, between the inside side edge of my hand, and itself, my thumb. As I walked back to my seat, I got/felt the message coming into me that life is like this too. God gives us life and love, but we still need to catch it, and run with it, and hold it within ourselves too, actively alive. If we do not catch God coming into our lives, we let him fall between our fingers, and onto the ground beneath us. We ignore his presence, and trample his presence away from ourselves, with our feet. It is up to us to have the faith to see these messages, when they appear, from our giving credence to this inner spiritual life too, in our lives, as being real for ourselves too.

@Shiva49 Yes, we can try to feel blessed, and then try to see why the frog is wanting to be in the well too. Every drop of water that falls into our lives can be Holy water, if we see it that way, and refresh ourselves with it, trying to see the drop of good still in it too. We do not need to be polluted by life, as it will always remain pure to us, when we pick out these drops of Holy water from every rainy day that comes our way, and use them to refreshen our lives with their love.

@innertalks Good that it did not drop to the ground. Then it can haunt you as an ill omen. I see the hand of God in the lucky breaks in life and also the supposed bad lucks which proved a blessing later. Or they made me change course and not take a "frog in a well" approach. The best is to feel blessed whatever happens and all is needed to keep us alive. Our lives should reflect flowing water, finding ways to keep going and enriching the path we take.

That is nice to hear of family support. For me, it is more about self-motivation

That is a perfect choice. Doing our best and accepting the rewards thereof should help.

Yes, they are basics that most tend to forget.