Daily Prompt – May 17, 2026

That really depends on how interested I am in what I am learning. If it’s something I’m interested in and excited by or truly curious about I don’t need to stay motivated. The motivation comes naturally. These are the things hyperfixations are borne of. These are the topics I will lose myself in for hours, days, weeks, or even months. Digesting as much about the topic as my brain will allow. I will become an expert or close to it. I will jump into rabbit holes, chase tangents, and seek out experts until I feel like I’ve covered everything about the topic.

Conversely, if I have zero interest in the subject, there is almost nothing that can be done to motivate me. We learned this the hard way when I was a child. I would come close to failing most of my social studies classes because I just didn’t care so I wouldn’t do the work. Ultimately, it was decided that the best thing to do was keep me in the most basic version of these classes. Attempts to challenge me in order to inspire me to work on these classes only back fired and caused harm to my GPA. As I progressed in school, I avoided them as much as possible, taking only the required courses and even then selecting ones that felt interesting.

These days, the only thing that motivates me to deal with classes I don’t care about is completing them so I can finish my degree. I would not call it learning.