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Originally Posted by Walter Villa
La vita e come una corsa in motocicletta; nessuno sa quanta benzina il destino ha messo nel nostro serbatoio. C'e chi nasce con il pieno e chi, senza saperlo, viene al mondo gia in riserva ma...che tu abbia il pieno o poche gocce di benzina non importa, quello che conta e andare sempre al massimo fino all'ultima goccia di vita.
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Quote:
Translation :
Life is like a motor race; nobody knows how much petrol Destiny has poured into our tank. There are people who have theirs full and people who, without knowing it, come to life already low on petrol but...no matter if yours is full or you have only a few drops, what counts is going at top speed till your last drop of life.
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What gets YOU going?
Edit : a bit of backstory on what motivates me.
I come from a family of overachievers who set an extremely high bar for me at an early age. Both parents were immigrants who came to the US from nothing - think of the poorest 3rd world living conditions you can and that's damn near what my mom experienced growing up before moving to the US, and as for my dad his mother and grandmother pooled money to send him to the US with nothing but the clothes on his back. He was born in Germany just before WW2, so you can do the math on living conditions and such there at the time.
My mom grew to speak 5 languages fluently, knocked out a bachelor's and Master's degree from UC Berkeley, and worked for NASA, law firms, etc before retiring to work for her church. My dad started off literally picking cotton for nothing more than room + board + learning English as a teenager, but went on to speak 4 languages fluently, another 5-6 conversationally, and earned a bachelor's, 2 master's, and a Ph.D. Literal rocket scientist. Of my siblings, one is trilingual and has so far completed a bachelor's + master's, and is a director at a tech company. The other is conversational in 2 other languages though not fluent, dropped out of college, and started his own business somewhat successfully so far in SF. I know he's on 2addicts but dunno if he reads this forum.
As for me? I joined the military, speak English and sarcasm (have lost my conversational language skills due to lack of use, but was working towards fluency in 3 other languages), have now knocked out a bachelor's degree, and am climbing rapidly through various tech companies (I've worked for 2/5 of the FAANG companies + NASA so far). In the time honored tradition of wanting my future kids to have a better life than I did, I want to be even more successful and accomplished than my parents were. I never want to have to tell my kids (within reason) "we can't afford that". I want them to be able to travel and enjoy vacations. I want to be able to help as many others achieve their dreams or goals - or even just marginally improve their lives - as possible. That generally becomes easier to do, and you can help more people, the more money you have / make, so chasing the money is also a key motivator for me. I work with several nonprofits and charities in addition to my main job and am slowly learning how to start my own business on the side.
As much as I've accomplished though, it still pales in comparison to my family...so, onward and upward. That's what motivates me.