Routes to Self Improvement

It's a few weeks since my last post and that painful foot has been dominating my life. It is "only" a skin problem, following a severe allergic reaction to a skin ointment after an insect bite. Some insect bite! I had always seemed hated by insects, even the mosquitoes on the tropical island where I live avoided me like the plague. Then along came this tiny almost invisible nik-nik, hiding in the grass as the rainy season started in our new home. The bite came, in an hour or two it had opened into a wound, and within a few hours was an inch diameter open wound. Congrats to the insect, it is obviously quite an achiever, as are his mates who he (or she) has sent along since. As for me, I was struggling with my own daily motivation.

Last year, I was stuck indoors from August to December in pain levels ranging from very sore to total agony. For 6 weeks I was unable to walk to the computer, and was using my office chair as a wheelchair. Once there, all I could do was check email and a few stats, and wheel myself back to bed. It was like having third degree burns almost up to my knee. Somehow, though, I had to keep going. My income was at severe risk the longer I went without doing any new work.

While everyone around me thought I was dying, I remained unworried by the condition itself. My wife had seen someone in her home province die with a similar looking leg. I was more concerned about getting back to work. After all, I only needed my brain and fingers, and "work" was literally a few metres away.

For the first three months of those four, motivation each day was quite easy, as I saw my income rise, each month being double the same month in 2006. I began to wonder if I should stay on the bed forever and become a billionaire. At the end of the third month, though, it all came crashing down along with my income.

That  "crash" became a new motivation. One thing I have found about myself is that I thrive in adversity. If something bad happens, whether not being well or something else, it motivates me no end, even though I may mutter a naughty word or two in the process.

I have always found adversity to be a great motivator, throughout my life. Many years ago, a friend remarked that if I fell in a dung heap, I would get up smelling of roses. So, here's to the latest dung heap and its infestations of tropical insects, and more importantly to the fresh smell of roses to come. Why should I need more motivation than that?