self-motivation

17/8
Motivational music...I know what you're thinking. How can music be motivating, inspiring or in any truly significant way contribute to your mental health and overall well-being? (I know these are the sentiments of certain diehard doubters such as Lynn O'Brien) Nay! I say to you! I feel music can serve just such purposes!
When I'm in the midst of my 'daily doldrums,' I have a playlist I've creatively entitled Peace Corps Motivation/Working Music. The first part is pretty obvious and the second may seem so as well, but it's deceptive. Here, as a classic overachiever and American, I feel like I always have to be 'working' and busy. They tell us at the beginning of training that this is not your average work. They call it the "toughest job you'll ever love." All this is true, but you don't realize it, until you're in the middle of it and you can't figure out how to fill your days. You begin to, typically with the newly time-consuming tasks that occupy the time of most Rwandans (shopping at the market or scouting through boutiques; hand-washing laundry; hand-mopping your floor; visiting neighbors; greeting nearly everyone you see and inquiring as to whether or not 'they're strong'). Unfortunately, while difficult most days, this does not feel like 'work' in the traditional sense, especially to a fine-tuned 9-5er as most of us are.
This is where it all comes together.
The playlist I've created magically reminds me first, that this is all part of the process. I am "working." I'm creating the puzzle pieces that I'll eventually put together to create my fulfilling life here. But this requires a great deal of patience (especially without a jig saw!) Creating the pieces is slow work, especially when you have no idea how they're even really supposed to fit together, and especially when this puzzle is supposed to improve people lives.
It has such songs as "Waiting on the World to Change," the "Yes, We Can" with will.i.am and Barack excerpts, and "Waving Flag." They all get to me, but the last one (besides making me miss the world's greatest summer AND the World Cup) reminds me that I'm actually doing this. When I was in the midst of the application process, in the summer of 2010 (the aforementioned greatest summer), I found a video of kids lip-syncing to that song as part of a project for English teaching from Peace Corps volunteers. While listening to the song now I remember, I AM one of those now, doing just such things, or beginning to...that's enough motivation to get me through the doldrums... and the extra greetings... and all the itchiness from mosquitoes that come outta nowhere to attack at night.
I remember why I wanted to do all this and then I get really excited because I am doing it. And then, I typically turn on some Kanye and dance around like an idiot, but a happy idiot.