Skip to main content

Motive

A little over a year ago, my eighth-grade class was studying character motivation. During the introduction of the idea, I tried to bridge the notion of character motivation to our own motivation. Knowing a person's motivation, I tried to stress, allows you to glean something about that person's character. The example I used was unintentionally self-revealing. What if, I said, a person entered the room pleading that someone outside needed immediate medical attention. One person whose motive was duty might think it morally right to lend assistance, but may have no real concern for the person. The person would go, perhaps begrudgingly, as though it was a necessary act. The victim, to him, is simply a receptacle into into which he pours his skill or aid, a mere opportunity to demonstrate his own value as a human being. His motivation is self-interested. The next person, on the other hand, might genuinely care about a victim's life and so leave in haste out of his or her desire to see the victim restored. This second type pours into the other, not for recognition, but because he truly wants the victim to be safe again.

While the outcome of an act may be the same (in the case of the medical emergency, the person's life is saved), the difference in value assigned to the person is enormous. No personal relationship-- friendship or otherwise-- can last if it is built on duty. The one gets tired over time, or the other learns by the person's behavior that he or she acts out of self-interest. There is no room for real human connection in duty, and no awareness of the person as a human being. This seems to be the message of First Corinthians 13:3: "If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."

Motives, of course, aren't always so easily identified. The Bible says as much in Jeremiah and Proverbs:

"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure ["desperately wicked" in the King James version]. Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)

"There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death." (Proverbs 16:25)

This, I know, is one of the reasons to spend time reading the Bible and in prayer. Time with God like this fine tunes your awareness of him and of yourself. While the heart may be beyond cure, we can gain a greater understanding of our motives and ourselves. The importance of this knowledge is significant when you consider that your motives form part of your character. A later proverb says that "as water reflects a face, so a man's heart reflects the man" (Proverbs 27:19). Why we do what we do matters.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Heroes

Although we have several examples of heroes in our day, one of the best known is of a woman named Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (“Gonja Bojaju”), who devoted her life to sustaining the “poor, sick, orphaned, and dying.” Her venue was Calcutta, India, where she served as a teacher until she began to take notice of the poverty there. Seeking to do something about it, she began an organization that consisted of just thirteen members at its inception. Called the “Missionaries of Charity,” the organization would eventually burgeon into well over 5,000 members worldwide, running approximately 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries; and caring for the orphaned, blind, aged, disabled, and poor. As her personal work expanded, she traveled to countries like Lebanon, where she rescued 37 children from a hospital by pressing for peace between Israel and Palestine; to Ethiopia, where she traveled to help the hungry; to Chernobyl, Russia, to assist victims of the nuclear meltdown there; and to ...
2 comments
Read more

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...
2 comments
Read more

Comparative Medical Care

One thing I'd like to understand is why there is such a difference between medical costs here and those in Haiti. At the time the book Mountains Beyond Mountains was written, in 2003, it often cost $15,000 to $20,000 annually to treat a patient with tuberculosis, while it cost one one-hundredth of that-- $150 to $200-- to treat a patient for the disease in Haiti. Even if the figures aren't completely accurate, the sheer difference would still be there. Indeed, the United States pays more per capita for medical care than any other country on Earth. My first guess for why the disparity exists is that there is a market willing and able to pay more for medical treatment, so suppliers see the demand and respond with higher prices. According to at least one doctor (go to http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/05/what_is_the_cause_of_excess_co.php), part of the reason is administrative prices here. People here have a higher standard of living, and so the cost of care is shifted to ...
2 comments
Read more