When my dad was in his eighties and unfortunately, not in very good health. But on some days when he feels a bit better, he would go outside the house, sit on a chair, and learn Malayalam – a language totally alien to him.
One day, my neighbor (a retired IAS officer) told me, “We never learned Malayalam properly even though our job demanded it. And here is your dad, at this age, always reading some Malayalam book!”
Why my dad did that — I have no idea. He was never going to use the language, nor did he have any functional need for it.
But my guess is that learning a new language lit up some part of his brain — he probably found it rewarding to figure out the grammar or read a few words in a newspaper.
In our lives, we do things with various motivations – some external, some internal.
When the motivation is external, e.g., financial reward or threat of negative consequences, somebody has to keep chasing us. And even then, at some point, these motivations hit their limits.
But when our brain itself generates its own reward, external rewards cease to matter.
That is the motivation you will never run out of.
– Rajan