Senior government and politics major
I know everyone is familiar with “motivational posters.” Those tired old JPEGs of cats clinging to a branch that say, “Hang in there!” or a snap of a guy on top of a mountain subtitled “Aspire to climb as high as you can dream!” These things don’t work for me.
I’m going to be a rebel and write an opposition to the typical model of motivation — I’m not inspired by dreams, inner strength or resilience. At this point in the semester, I’m powered by the internal combustion of pure and targeted spite.
Huge assignment? Awesome. I’m going to make it so good, it’s going to make the prompt look like an embarrassment. The effort I put in will make the professor afraid to assign something like that to the next set of students, for fear of being intellectually shamed once more.
Column to write? I sit in the darkness and grind my teeth until I find the one thorn in my side that I can tear to pieces for at least 500 words. Then, I set my target in front of me, throw a fistful of knives at it and drop a steamroller on it for good measure. When I’m done, I’m breathing smoke out of my nostrils like a cartoon ox, but shipping the finished product out to The Diamondback is like staring at a dead fly that had been harassing me for hours.
If I find a person as the target of my spite, I become more motivated than ever to overcome them. I don’t mean I’ll ignore them or cut them out of my life, I mean that I will work to be so audaciously successful that we never talk because of their terrified awe. Not that I’ve ever found that happening, but the feeling gets me so motivated I shoot for the moon. No five-year plan or early morning exercise ever gets me dreaming bigger than picturing myself outshining someone I don’t like.
People like me, we’re the real Sith Lords. I know, the Sith lose at the end of the story, but Luke never killed Vader or Emperor Palpatine. Spoiler: They killed each other. That means I’m invincible.
Emma Atlas is a senior government and politics major. She can be reached at eatlasdbk@gmail.com.
