How Motivation is Slavery: Why Youthful Action does not come from Motivation

Acharya Prashant

4min

435reads

How Motivation is Slavery: Why Youthful Action does not come from Motivation

Motivation is external, temporary, and dependent on people, events, speeches, or circumstances, so it makes one a slave to outside forces. Real youthful action does not arise from motivation or habit, but from intelligence, understanding, and inward clarity. Life must be met consciously moment to moment, not mechanically through borrowed energy.

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Originally published in The New Indian Express on 22 jun '21

An energetic, youthful action comes from understanding and intelligence and it has spontaneity to it and it has inwardness to it.

All motivation is external. Go into this. Motivation means an external force, an external agency, an external stimulus, is acting upon you and making you react in a certain way. Is that not what motivation is?

So, someone comes and says a few words to you - those words have a certain impact on your mind and you start acting and behaving in a particular manner and that is what you call 'motivation', or you watch an inspiring movie or read a fancy tale and that has a certain effect on you, a summoning of energy, and you call that 'motivation', and you are happy with it; but don’t you see what that does to you?

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Krishna Tiwari

2mon ago

🪔

Dikshita Raj

2mon ago

For a long time I was trying to make good habit and to make my work habit. But I didn't think this way that it would be still a habit. and would be same harmful to me like my other bad habits cause it would be coming from unconsciousness. but truly...

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