Drive - The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us (Daniel H Pink)

I read this book because I was interested to find out what motives me to do something and what I can do to continuously motive myself.

All this time I thought motivation was built around external rewards and punishments - people respond to rewards and punishments. For example, the more severe a punishment is, the less likely someone is gonna commit that crime. It is not something hard to understand and correlate after all. However, little did I know that it is more than sticks and carrots, we have our third drive called intrinsic motivation as contrast to extrinsic motivation. 

Why do I read books and keep a blog when I am not receiving any monetary perks? According to this book, it is powered by our innate need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. The three elements of intrinsic behaviors are autonomy (our desire to be self-directed), mastery (our urge to get better and better at what we do) and purpose (our yearning to be part of something larger than ourselves). Come to think of it, owning a blog does give me a sense of control (to decide the layout/ fonts I am gonna use) and I do want to get better at writing, reading and thinking through blogging. And maybe I do have the inner yearning to share the knowledge and my thoughts with people from the other side of the world. But if I start generating income through blog advertising, I might lose all the fun, joy and satisfaction because such an act can transform an interesting task into a drudge, turn play into work which in turn diminish the intrinsic motivation. This is why carrots and sticks method is no longer compatible in today's corporate world. 

My main focus is mastery, one of the elements in intrinsic behaviors - what can we do to move toward mastery in our lives? There are 3 laws - mastery is a mindset, mastery is a pain and lastly mastery is an asymptote. This helps to remind myself whenever I procrastinate.

All in all, this book is very useful to help you understand and improve your lives and your business. Another good thing about this book is that at the end of it, the author actually provides a summary of all chapters to strengthen your memory in case you have forgotten certain key points. The author also goes as far as to provide you a list of books/ websites relevant to this subject matter. I will definitely reread once I get a hard copy of it.

I am reading this for Non-Fiction, Non-Memoir Reading Challenge 2012.

Dance Dance Dance (Haruki Murakami)

I tried my best not to search and go though online reviews about this book until I finished reading it. This is also the first ever Murakami's book I bought (with the RM200 vouchers given).

She is definitely calling me. From somewhere in the Dolphin Hotel. And apparently, somewhere in my own mind, the Dolphin Hotel is what I seek as well. To be taken into the scene, to become part of that weirdly fateful venue.

To return to the Dolphin Hotel means facing up to a shadow of the past. The prospect alone depresses. It has been all I could do these four years to rid myself of that chill, dim shadow. To return to the Dolphin Hotel is to give up all I'd quietly set aside during this time. Not that what I'd achieved is anything great, mind you. However you look at it, it's pretty much the stuff of tentative convenience. Okay, I'd done my best. Through some clever juggling I'd managed to forge a connection to reality, to build a new life based on token values. Was I now supposed to give it up?

The protagonist, whose name is not mentioned, has returned to the Dolphin Hotel in Sapporo. What was once a sad and peculiar hotel which buried deep in his memory has been transformed into a gleaming modern multistory building where the surrounding areas are booming too. From there, he makes friend with the receptionist with glasses, Yumiyoshi and a 13 years old girl, Yuki. He has also met and talked to the Sheep Man in his cramped room. While watching the movie Unrequited Love starring his former classmate (whose real name was Gotanda), he sees his missing ex-girlfriend, Kiki appear in one of the scenes. All sorts of strange connections are starting to come together.

Okay, I love this one!!! The reading started with quite a slow pace that at one moment, I thought I might give it up on. Lucky I didn't. Having read a few of Murakami's works, I thought this is the most logical I have read so far. There is nothing too absurd to follow. It can be summarized as a journey an ordinary thirty-four year old divorced man launched to reconnect with an old friend, reconsider meanings of loss and abandonment and lastly find love.

Thirty-four is a difficult age. A different kind of difficult than age thirteen, but plenty difficult. Gotanda and I were both thirty-four, both beginning to acknowledge middle age. It was time we did. Readying things to keep us warm during the colder days ahead.

Gotanda put it succinctly. "Love. That's what I need."

"I am so touched," I said. But the fact was, that's what I needed too. 

I love the murder mystery. It doesn't bother me whether or not Gotanda has indeed killed Kiki or Mei for that matter. And the friendship between the protagonist and Gotanda is well-evolved. In the last chapter, just when I thought the story would just end with a happy ending after the reunion of the protagonist and Yumiyoshi (which it eventually did).. but before that, Murakami did a great job at spicing it up with the suspense that the protagonist might lose Yumiyoshi in the dark. My heart skipped several beats. Dahlah I was alone in my apartment that night.

Yumiyoshi took the penlight from me and leafed through the pamphlet. I was casually observing my own shadow, wondering where the Sheep Man was, when I suddenly struck by a horrifying realization: I'd let go of Yumiyoshi's hand! 

My heart leapt into my throat. I was not ever to let go of her hand. I was fevered and swimming in sweat. I rushed to grab Yumiyoshi by the wrist. If we don't let go, we'll be safe. But it was already too late. At the very moment I extended my hand, her body was absorbed into the wall. Just like Kiki has passed through the wall of the death chamber. Just like quicksand. She was gone, she had disappeared, together with the glow of the penlight.

P/S: I am reading this for Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge 2012.   

2012

2011 has been a good year. I believe everything that I have gone through will make me a wiser person. Now, I can't wait to see what 2012 has in store for me!! And my 2012 has officially arrived after I was done with my finals yesterday. Lol.

Here's a list of reading challenges which I would love to sign up to participate in 2012:

Middle East Challenge

South Asian Challenge

I have many acquaintances  from South Asia and Middle East (in fact, my supervisor and co-supervisor for my final year project are both Bangladeshi). Yet, I have little to almost zero understanding about their culture and everything. Hence, it is time for me to start reading books about South Asian and Middle Eastern. I am planning to read at least two books for each challenges. 

Non-Fiction, Non-Memoir Reading Challenge

2012 is going to be a year with non-fictions for me! So for Non-Fiction Non Memoir Reading Challenge, I aim to try out for Bachelor's degree at 15 non-fictions or more.

Dystopia 2012 Challenge

I consider signing up for Dystopia Reading Challenge as well as I have a few books about Dystopia on my 2012 Reading List. My target is read 5 books, which is the first level: Asocial. 

EDIT:

Haruki Murakami Reading Challege 2012

How could I leave out Haruki Murakami?? There are so many of his books which I intend to read. Among them are 

- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

- Norwegian Wood

- The wind-Up Bird Chronicle

- Underground

- After the Quake

So the level of participation will be Toro. But I really hope that I will read more than five.

Let's read more books!