What motivates you?

Pay attention to the weight of time.  The increase in weight is imperceptible at first, but it builds, and if you fail to notice, it will crush you.

A flutter of panic in the heart when the heart realizes its beats are finite.  The agonizing regret of misused moments that add up to hours, days, weeks, months, years that could have been used.  Pairing the crush of time with tired bones, fear of pain, and dread of failure makes each day less likely to be "the one" where it all changes for the better.

Motivation should have started when there was what seemed to be an eternity of time, but eternity breeds procrastination.  Wisdom would say that even now there is an eternity of time compared to the weight that will be added in another ten, twenty, or thirty years.  My age could double, and yet now it feels too late.

Fear crushes motivation.  Action crushes fear.  Doubt crushes action.  Doubt and fear build upon each other.  Action builds motivation.  Analysis: act.  Even if you're wrong, act.  Be wrong.  Be disappointed.  Be reprimanded.  Lose a job.  Lose your money.  Catch a cold.  Fight for change and be thwarted.  Whatever you do, though, ACT.  Be excited for the failure so you can banish the fear.  If success comes, be delighted, but delight in the disappointment, too.  Act to banish fear and doubt.  Act to boost motivation, and motivation will boost your action.  Time will lift from your heart and the ache will lift from your bones and you, in thirty years, will look back and you can say that every moment was used to its fullest.

If you were running for president, what would be your campaign slogan?

"Madam President, please.  You must evacuate now."  Waiting only a beat further, the last Secret Service agent remaining gave in and scooped President DeWitt under her armpits and lifted her from her husband's body.  She seemed to want to fight, but gave in to Agent Brody's inexorable pull, the fight gone for now.

Describe your life ten years from now.

I always yelled at the women in those movies who, while running away from an attacker, kept looking back over their shoulders, wasting valuable energy and time.  Thick, jungle leaves slapping me in the face, twisted roots looking to trip me at every step, I found that looking back couldn't be helped.  I turned back just like those stupid women, looking to see if my attacker was any closer than he was before.  I refocused my concentration on running and added a burst of speed.

It was only this morning that I was lounging on the cruise ship's deck, sipping a bit of orange juice and looking forward to going ashore with the guests.