Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.
? Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
This doesn’t seem that different from lots of aspects of life and could possibly serve as motivational words of wisdom for you. Try waking up and imagining you are a lion. Each day, be ready and work hard. And if you catch some big prey (or more likely, a big catch simply falls into your lap due to some dumb luck), remember you don’t have to keep gorging each day looking for bigger and bigger catches. Enjoy each large catch and take a day off from hunting/eating. Taking that important step back and being thankful for the big catches will help keep you fit (body and mind)…which you’ll need…to be ready, each day, to work hard again. For, in the end, it is not the feeling of the catches you will remember/gauge your life on…it is the feeling you had each morning, knowing you were ready…and the feeling you had each night, knowing you worked hard…and knowing you enjoyed the good hunt the whole time.
Note: The balance of opposites (motivation and contentment) returns as a theme once again. I find it to be one of the most fascinating and challenging aspects of life.