What Keeps You Going?

I was talking for hours yesterday with a friend whom has been involved
as a leader in alternative economics for many years.  He's writing the
preface to the first English edition of a book about alternative
currency that was published in German a few years ago, and he's
focusing on cutting edge work to bring the book fully up to date.  So
he was asking me a bunch of questions to achieve a certain clarity
about our Reconomy project.  My answers sorted out like this:

- Paying people to produce the essential commodities that they consume
is a deep solution to hunger and poverty.  This is a truth that people
who live with poverty grasp immediately.

- To connect the dots between this production and consumption we need
money that stays in the community.  Local currency can serve if the people value it so that it
circulates continuously.  To accomplish this value we discount the
commodities that we produce when purchased with our local currency.

When he asked me what keeps me working on this all these years, I had
to stop for a moment to think because no one had ever asked me that before. Over
"all these years" the mission has become as invisible to me as air,
although it remains just as vital to me as breathing.  I'm working to
end hunger and poverty.  That's the mission, what keeps me at it.

I think without distinguishing clearly between the strategy and the mission the whole
project can sound empty because "strategy" isn't the reason we do
things.

What keeps you going?