Dear Ayrton:

You started your thread with your name. You were named after Ayrton Senna, a Formula One racing driver. He was Brazilian but in the early eighties he lived and raced in Norfolk, England. He died about two years before you were born, following his final race, May 1, 1994.

Your parents, one or both, must have been fans of Senna, so moved by his life and death that they named you after him.

Wikipedia quotes Senna having said: ‘The harder I push, the more I find within myself. I am always looking for the next step, a different world to go into, areas where I have not been before. It’s lonely driving a Grand Prix car, but very absorbing. I have experienced new sensations, and I want more. That is my excitement, my motivation.”   In the early 80s, his wife of one year or so said: “I was his second passion. His first passion was racing… There was nothing more important in the world for him, not family, not wife, nothing.”

You repeatedly wrote that you lack motivation, drive. And you want those things, which Senna had, motivation and drive that will carry you toward fame and power comparable to Senna’s.

In your original post you shared about the responsibility you feel that you “must live up t the name”. You spent “countless sleepless nights… making up stories of how (you’re) going to inspire the next generation and how (you would) be remembered for years to come”.

You had the motivation to be like him but your real life has been very different from Senna’s. starting with very different childhood. His wealthy father, a landowner and factory owner, provided him with the material opportunities to develop his interests. Most importantly, maybe Ayrton Senna’s parents provided their son with empathy, comfort, respect. Maybe you didn’t have that fortunate childhood.

His parents gave him the nickname Beco. They didn’t name him after a famous person.

Your motivation has been to be like Ayrton Senna. His motivation was probably to be himself. It is not that you lack motivation, I am thinking, but that you have had the wrong motivation all these years, and that was to be somebody else.

Your thoughts and feelings?

anita

Hello friend,

It seems you are putting enormous pressure on yourself to achieve this “something” that will make it all worthwhile. Your life, the process of getting to know yourself through the ups and downs is what it’s all about. If you don’t enjoy the ride then you aren’t moving towards the right destination. Once you let go of the pressure to “be somebody” and to actually accept your situation you will feel totally open to what life throws your way. It’s about putting out what you want to the universe, working your way towards it and letting things come to you. And the whole being somebody thought…just be a good person, people will remember you. Your effect on others is the biggest currency there is… (watch Jim Carrey’s commencement speech, it is wonderfully brilliant). Turn inward!