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Why Bother?

Posted by Joseph Riggio on Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Mornin’,

There’s an interesting thing that goes on with regard to how people seem to make decisions about what to do ... and someday I’ll get more deeply into that actual process, but for today I want to do something else entirely and that is to talk about the “WHY” instead of the “HOW.” WHY do people make the decisions they do?

First let me share with you a simple definitiion about decisions that I use when I refer to them - for me “a decision” includes the process of perceiving the sensory information in the environment/context that leads up to the decision and is included in it, the internal cognitive, “thinking” process used to make the decision AND the actual action taken in implementing it. Without action there is no decision in this definition. That’s critical to where I’m going with this ...

What I find is that some folks make their decisions because of some externally driven “cause,” or “reason” if you prefer. They are organized to do what they do BECAUSE of the stimulus they encounter - and this is most often tied to the belief that what will happen as a result, i.e.: the effect of their actions, will be somehow “better than” what’s in place before they act. This works brilliantly as long as the drivers to action are hedonistic - i.e.: “I’ll get something from doing this.” or “I’ll feel good as a result of doing this.” you can keep this going.

While this may be logical as hell it’s also difficult to sustain beyond a certain level of consideration. As soon as you go even slightly existential - as in, “What does it all mean?” or “Why does this matter?” this kind of thinking and logic begins to collapse. Then if you add in a certain amount of determinism - as in, “Destiny is everything.” or “The Universe is a clockwork mechanism unfolding from the moment of the “Big Bang"." this logic again falls apart on you. In other words it’s mighty hard to sustain the external motivation to act.

The worst thing of all however to an externally driven, hedonistic motivation model is the consideration of that killjoy ... ETHICS. SH-T!!! As soon as you add in an ethical consideration - simply put, “What is the right thing to do?” It becomes almost impossible to act on a solely hedonistic motivation. Of course you’d have to ask and answer for yourself, “What is the right thing to do?” - and, this is almost absolutely individualistic, something that is almost impossible to prescribe vis-a-vis an “ethical” or “moral” code that’s etched stone - almost everyone has got to learn this one from a combination of absorbing the ethics and morals of their mileau/culture and a certain amount of soul-searching for themselves. Yet almost everyone has an ethical position they hold as well - even when they are not upholding it (or acting from it).

Where this brings me is that from my studies, my own personal contemplation of “what is right” and the work I’ve done for over two decades now with clients - is that, those who act from an internally driven position make better decisions. This means that the decisions they make serve both them and the system they operate within and in relation to better through time than decisions that are made on purely external references. I could put it even more simply - when you ask these folks about their lives they are more settled and happier overall in response to the query.

So, in spite of recognizing that an action might not “mean” anything in the overall scheme of things - that the gum or cigarette you choose NOT to throw on the ground for someone else to have to deal with won’t change in any meaningul way the state of the world, or even the level of trash in your personal environment - it matters to you. When you uncover or discover what truly matters to you ... and then choose to live by that standard ... IN SPITE OF THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY ... your life becomes meaningful to you. That seems to me the basis of the beginning of a great decision-making strategy at the very least.

Best regards,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
05 July 2006 Princeton, NJ

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