What Makes You Tick?

I have been thinking a lot lately about why I do what I do, what makes me tick? Why do I keep getting up in the morning? What drives me to keep going after my goals and dreams? Why don't I just give it up and settle for the status quo? Why can't I seem to quit?

It is like no matter what I cannot break through and really achieve the life that I am after but I can't stop pursuing it either... what is that?

When I look around the world I see a whole bunch of people who have successfully given up. They have settled in into life as it is and apparently don't desire more out of it. How is that done? What gives people the ability to give up on their dreams and be so happy to do it?

I have to believe that at one point everybody around you had dreams and goals that they were striving to achieve and become and "be". Those things are a vital part of life as we know it, they are one of the things that separate us from the animals. We have the ability to dream of what could be instead of just accepting what is.

Maybe that is why I can't stop; because I value my dreams, they are a part of me. They are so deep a part that I feel like if I gave up on them I would become no more than an animal acting on nothing more than instinct and doing nothing more than responding to the world around me.

What are your dreams? What have you given up on? What are you still striving for despite the fact that it may never come to fruition?... What makes you tick, dreams or instinct?