My Motivation

This idea is courtesy of the lovely Ms. Aquadisiac!

A stroll around my office revealed one day that
everyone had photos of their loved ones on their desk - spouses (and other kinds of significant others), children, parents, friends, etc.


But putting up photos of my loved ones has never really been my thing.  When friends in university, and then France and Spain put up huge collages of their favourite people back home, I put up posters, ticket stubs, postcards, photos of architecture, candy wrappers, receipts...all mementos from fun outings and evenings, collected from wherever I was at the time.

When people put up pictures of their kids, I'm sure it goes a long way to motivate them to work harder (or to make it through the day, if they hate their job).  But what could motivate me to work harder?

Memories and dreams of being in different places!  So I printed out a photo of each of my favourite places in the world and put them beside my monitor at work.  On the top row, there's Manhattan, Shibuya (Tokyo), Madrid, Nice, and Monaco.  Below there's Allgäu, Paris, Barcelona, and Amsterdam. 

Underneath two of the bottom row pictures, I put up a sign in Cantonese that is actually a quote from my mother, when I lamented to her one day about how long it had been since I'd travelled.  It directly translates to "If you make money, you can go wherever you want!"

How do you motivate yourself at work?