Two types of opportunity
In life, some opportunities emerge naturally to solve a meaningful problem, and the journey rewards you more than the outcome. The motivation isn’t transactional: it isn’t about reaching X or just getting the job done.
Other opportunities are engineered and orchestrated to chase an unrealistic outcome. The journey becomes meaningless, the outcome puts more pressure on you, and that pressure becomes the motivation.
- Organic: you become a better person, nothing is disrupted, and the motivation is governed well.
- Fabricated: you become too transactional about an unknown outcome, the motivation is governed in a disruptive way, and your character is devalued.
Written after replying to a post in the Nairobi GNU/Linux User Group.