In a late night chat, I was asked by a friend what I would consider to be the thing that drives me the most – what is it that more than anything else makes me want to stay involved, no matter how hard something is.

I was kind of stumped. It wasn’t something I had ever considered before. I always took it for granted that it is plain old interest that keeps me going.

Turns out, after a night of discussing this with my pillow, that I was wrong.

I took a step back, and looked at several long and short term projects that I have been involved with over the past few years. These included FOSS.IN and Linux Bangalore, Phenom, Exocore, Infinity Radio, Barcamp Mumbai, the BLUG and its involvement in Bangalore IT.COM ’99, the PC Quest Linux Project, and several others.

In all of them, I found myself driven by the enthusiasm shown by other people involved in the project. No matter how hard or how impossible something seemed – if the team was enthusiastic about it, and people contributed their efforts to it, then I found my own interest, and hence drive, soaring.

On the other hand, lack of visible enthusiasm sucks my drive like a flat tire. I lose interest, and eventually fade out of the project.

The conclusion I drew from my late-night introspective was that for me to succeed at anything, I have to work on something that involves people who are at least as enthusiastic about it as I am, and show it.

In short, their enthusiasm is the fuel that drives my engine.