Tuesday, January 11, 2005

What's Your Motivation?

Well, here’s something you don’t see everyday.  I wonder how many people in that church got real religious after that. 

So, I read this story about a cab driver who found a large amount of money in his backseat after dropping off a fare.  He put it in safekeeping and when the people returned for it, he gave it back to them but they never gave him a reward or even said ‘thank you’.

Now, a year ago, I asked my readers what they would do if they found money.  I gave several different scenarios and got a lot of interesting responses to them.  What I did notice, however, in those comments and also things I’ve observed over the past year is that sometimes people do things only if they think they are going to get something back for it.

I know I have a lot of readers who are religious.  In that I mean, who are Christian or Jewish or Muslim; follow the teachings of a book or congregation.  I also know that I have other readers who don’t follow those but still believe in either some kind of higher power or believe in Karma or energy.  So this question really does go out to everybody regardless of what they believe, even if they don’t believe in anything, in that sense.

The question is, why do you do the things you do for others?  What I’m asking is, if you do something nice for someone or do what is “moral”, do you do it because you think you’ll get something back, do you do it to wear a badge that you can show off to your friends, “See what I do for people?” Do you do it for the recognition I guess I should say.  Do you do it to make someone else feel good, meaning you have empathy?  Do you do it to make you feel good or do you do it because you know it’s right and expect nothing in return?  What prompts you to help someone out or return something that belongs to someone else?  What is your motivation for this act?  To help you in your answer, the “someone” in this case would be either a total stranger or someone you don’t know all that well.

Begin.