What Motivates You Each Waking Day ?
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
We get up each day and do what we do... whether this be work, (house work etc) go to school, or whatever....
Have you ever wondered what it is that gets you out of bed each day...
Does this motivation involve happiness ? Eg one overall goal for the day is to find happiness in some way.... ( ok that rhymes but it was unintentional 
)
Some might dread getting up and having to face what the day might has in store...(but even this feeling of dread is motivation by ones goal to find happiness)
Others might bounce out of bed each morning raring to go, ie, looking forward to what the day could bring...
Is the pursuit of happiness the underlined key factor in all that we do...What gets us out of bed each day ?
(If you like you can substitute peace of mind for the word happiness ...I know at times how controversial the term happiness can be )
A similar discussion came up at the Monday night group I attend...
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I actually, not long ago, wrote a journal entry similar in theme. I found myself too frequently going to bed unhappy with how my day had gone, promising to do better the next and falling flat again. So I wrote up what my ideal day would consist of, and why. And I read it each morning before I get out of bed. Things I am grateful for, things that are important to me, etc. Why they are important to me and how they add to my experience of the day. Just like meditation, it sets up my day on a better note than simply getting up and rambling through a routine. Once my kids leave for school, I could sit all day long on the computer and hours would pass without me doing much of anything. I hated that, and had to do something to change it. The desire to do so made getting up much more pleasurable. To enjoy my day, even when problems came my way. I am always grounded by my self-care routine.
But I hate waking up. I am fine by the time I am on my feet. But those moments when the alarm goes off and I have to wake up and get moving are hard. Especially in the winter when it is dark. Otherwise I am a morning person.
Many reasons to get out of bed each day:
My back hurts after a long night laying in my hard bed
I have to go to work to feed my family
My son need to go to school
My Sons rabbit need food and water, and cant wait to eat.
My wife is screaming to me that I should have been out of bed for long time ago
I have to test my new Dhamma trick, reciting OM Mani Padme hum all day to quiet my bussy monkey mind, which is telling my that I should sleep a little bit longer :P
I luvs morning.
]
I sleep on the floor and my foot rest is my meditation cushions. So I am ready for inaction. Rearing to go do Nothing. I'm primed. I'm timed. GOOD MORNING VIETNAM! [so sorry
And there I was thinking lobsters all slept on sea beds
Just being alive is a big wake up call/motivator for some, especially for those who are in ill health ...having the ability to appreciate the little things in life/being grateful for something, would no doubt bring about some level of peace of mind .... I guess not wasting this precious life, by worrying about trivial things, goes a long way towards this...
It's funny, when one normally thinks about Buddhism one more often than not pictures a smiling face/a look of serenity ( or perhaps it's just from my mind's eye)...However thus have I heard there was a Tibetan Rinpoche whose title had a similar word to the English word grumpy in it ..it was said that he always looked grumpy and this was due to his overwhelming desire for all sentient being to be happy, he had taken Bodhisattva vows which involved not to find personal happiness until all other sentient beings were happy...(Well this was his excuse anyway
...Grumpy ol' sod 
)
My mind is a night owl (I'm just realizing this) and the rest of me is not.
If my mind could stay up all night, it surely would. My mind is always rarin' to go.
It often says, "What can I do today to improve on yesterday (and all those other yesterdays that were so crappy?"
Because I promised others, in many ways, that I would. I like to keep my promises.
@silver it sounds like a case of the spirit is 'too' willing but the flesh is weak
In the past when I've had the road runner speeding around inside my head ...I just let it run, the more energy I exerted trying to stop it, the faster it ran... what I found was after a while it gets bored/puffed out and stops of its own accord....
As they say... what we resist persists!
You have a floor?! Sheer luxury!
What gets me out of bed in the morning is, I suspect, not a fit subject for discussion.
What motivates me after I'm up and staggering around is many-layered, but the core of it is the search for that sweet spot in the mind where everything is as it should be and time does not exist.
Insightful...and funny too. (That's the guy!) If only I could learn to ignore it.
I have a huge bed and it's solidly comfy. With pillows. Despite that when I wake up I'm generally just awake and aware, with the remnants of sleep dissipating quickly. And so I go make coffee and then I sit on my couch and watch the waves on the beach which is just visible from my living room, or I catch up on the results of last night's baseball game.
Sometimes I feel after coffee a yearning to go back to bed, as if there is some relaxation that hasn't fully unfurled itself. I often give in to this impulse, if it happens, and then what follows is like a beautiful calm energy visiting me while I lie on my side, eyes closed. It's like a natural meditation, which happens in bed. Then I get up a second time.
This forum is part of my morning too, after I wake up I grab the tablet and read what all you American people have been writing in your evening while I was asleep.
I actually have to drag myself out of bed. I wake up with a heavy feeling of dread. I don't want to leave the warm comfort of my bed. I feel so safe there. Its a warm comforting sense of denial. Denial of the drabness of day to day activities that must be done.
I have a huge awareness of Dukha.
This might be helpful: http://www.wildmind.org/metta/one
This is a very interesting question, and points to an aspect mostly unexamined.
I would have to say that most days, it's simply that I have a long to-do list. Busy day, gotta get to it. Nothing more than that, really.
Needs some pondering , obviously.
Other days, it's the dog.
Don't blame the dog. The dog is innocent! [sorry for the outburst]
Well I think mornings are the best part of the day. The fragments of dreams quickly disappear and everything is fresh, the mind is still mostly asleep, your consciousness can tiptoe in and sneak a few moments of clear mindless functioning while you make coffee, it's great.
One of the things I look forward to is my daily walk by the sea. I enjoy it most when the waves are big and the weather stormy, nuffink like a large dose of nature!
An added bonus is the wildlife, cormorants, turnstones, chip-stealing gulls, seals and occasionally porpoises.
What gets me out of bed is a lack of desire to stay in bed!
@Kerome, I agree, perfectly put. There is just that sweet spot where you can be with the start of the new day before the bombardment of responsibilities and to-do lists have taken hold. It's a beautiful time of day. There are times I am up and have no choice (kids have an activity, dog was up and I can't sleep aftewards, etc) and I love it so much. And I ask myself every day why I don't get up to enjoy that special time. But my lazy body loves to sleep and in the summer when the kids are home I am not often up until 7am. Which is several hours after our sun comes up at that time of year. Winter it's easy, the sun isn't up until 8am. But in the summer? It's closer to 4am and that's still the middle of the night! Anhow, I think you explained that wonderfully. It is one of the reasons that early morning meditation and yoga is so highly recommended. Because you do that that break to allow a few moments of clarity.
I also know what inspires me to go to bed happy: going to YouTube and watching a few videos of Walmart People.
Thank you. I did this metta practice in my morning sit today and I noticed a difference in the way I felt. Like the other articles I mentioned in my other post though this one also talks about the emotions arising in meditation.
Do explore different approaches in meditation, to some extent it is trial and error, you learn from experience.