There are paradoxes and chicken-and-the-egg problems throughout the article:

> For me, something shifted in my late twenties. Growing up I guess you could call it. I don’t remember the exact straw that broke the camel’s back, but a desire for change grew.

> If you identity as a failure, incapable of achievement, unfit, unlovable, destined to play a bit-part role in your own story, then by heck no matter how much willpower you put in to push that boulder up the hill, it will return to its place.

> You have to actually want it.

How do you actually want to change? That part remains largely a mystery, and appears to be the all-important ingredient everything pretty much flows from.

At the end of the day, nobody knows why they want certain things - they just do. There is a lot of magic to that part. Where does "motivation" come from?

I go back and forth on this, but I pretty much settle on that motivation is the all-important ingredient which no one actually knows much about and all the rest is just backward-rationalizing to make ourselves feel good and feel that we have more agency than we really do.

People oscillate between rational and irrational motives. I reckon that motivation springs from either depending on the circumstance and the temperament of the individual. Such is the peculiar and special nature of man.

I think we go out of our way to rationalize decisions that emanate beyond reason because the truth is a lot more stark, and usually we only try to rationalize irrational choices when they backfire and we face criticism for them.

Allahu A’alam.