Intrinsic motivation

This is something that I wrote a while ago, and I just rediscovered it in my journal. It was during my senior year, some time after I learned about extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation in psychology. I reflected on what sort of motivation I had, what sort of motivation I wanted to have, and the true nature of each in the spiritual sense. This was the result.

"There are two types of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation is based on rewards. In other words, I work had in school because I know I will be rewarded with success in life. I do my chores because I will rewarded with satisfied parents and a clean household. Or, in a truer, bigger, and harsher sense, I do what's right because I will be rewarded with eternal life. A reward is anything that gives one pleasure in varying strength. Therefore, the strength of the extrinsic motivation is dependent on the strength of the reward. For example, suppose student A does his homework because he wants to get into a good college. Student B gets paid $10 for every A grade. Ignoring other things, Student B is more likely to be extrinsically motivated because the reward is consistent, expected, and predictable. Extrinsic motivation is nothing without the promise of a reward. If I buy a meal for a homeless person, I expect to either feel good for my service, be congratulated by my peers, or know that I have made the world a better place. However, if I don't care at all about the homeless person, my friends' approval, or the state of the world, I could very well save that hobo's life and feel nothing. You have to care about your rewards, and if you care nothing for a potential reward, it is not a reward to you. Concern is like emotional pleasure. If you had no concern for anything, it would be like eating a cookie, tasting it, but having no feeling of pleasure from the taste of that cookie. A lack of concern is like the organ without the brain; that organ may be sending messages, but if the brain does not discriminate between good and bad messages or pleasurable/not pleasurable messages, no change occurs. Fortunately, everybody cares about something, and that makes rewards, and, by extension, extrinsic motivation universally effective. Extrinsic motivation is entirely received; some stimulus occurs outside of yourself that gives you pleasure. If not for the stimulus, there would be no pleasure, no reward, and no extrinsic motivation. With extrinsic motivation, all you need is the reward. I don't have to want to do any homework as long as I am promised that I will get good grades.

"Intrinsic motivation is more difficult. People who run on intrinsic motivation do not receive an award from anyone--"

I stopped here, probably because it was late and I had to get to bed. I wondered over the next couple of days whether intrinsic motivation was truly possible, because it seemed like I didn't have any. The spiritual side of my dilemma made me even more confused, and this paradox is illustrated in my next entry:

"I begin with the question: Does intrinsic motivation exist? Intrinsic motivation is a feeling of pleasure or fulfillment that comes entirely from ourselves. Or does it? When we experience pleasure or fulfillment, that feeling either comes from God or ourselves. If God gives us that feeling, either it is sent to us or something within our bodies and/or spirits was created to experience that feeling when something happened. It seems for now that I am forced to conclude that either intrinsic motivation does not exist (because every feeling of pleasure is given to us) or that people create pleasure for themselves outside of God. Neither of these things seem possible, nor do I want to believe them. I know that the only thing we have to offer is our will, because everything else was originally given to us in the first place and therefore would be of no value to God if it was returned. Our will is our only gift to God, but if He did not give it to us, who did? Who made it? How did it come into being--"

Again I was unable to continue, this time because the prospect opened up a whole new dimension of thinking to me that I couldn't handle all at once. I was mainly confused about who I really was, and it took me a while to reconcile this confusion. A few days later, this is what I came up with:

"You have something of your own. God made you, yes, but there is some part of you that is completely and entirely unique, something that existed long before you had a consciousness. If every aspect of your personality was created, you would essentially not have existed as an intelligence. Because you did, you know that there is a 'you' that existed before you even gained a spirit. This is what makes true and pure intrinsic motivation possible, because God's feelings of pleasure that we receive are not entirely manufactured externally. We receive the internal comfort that the Spirit provides, but as beautiful and amazing that feeling is, it still came from God and thus can be classified as extrinsic motivation in a way. But it is not entirely that way. The Holy Spirit, in its workings, also activates the inner spirit, the self of self that lives far within us. Thus it becomes true intrinsic motivation because you are creating something that you love. You are driving yourself to spiritual perfection. Why is this component important? Because without it, God would essentially be programming a person to see how it would 'run' on earth. It would be a cruel God that gave people damning traits; that is, giving people attributes that would lead to their downfall by direct causation. God knows, as I now know, that there is a part of you that is completely independent of who He created your spirit to be. You are not just a formula for creation. God did not put you on the earth just to be who He expected you to be, because there would be no conflict that way. He knew your future only because He had seen it. He did know every part of you, but He also knew that there was a part he could have no control over in creation or maintenance. This is commonly known as free will. No matter how hardwired your personality may be to follow certain behavior patterns, you can always override that. The only bulwark that can stand against the flood of God's will is human agency, a fact that is as tragic as it is necessary for learning."

The last part of this, of course, is only possible because God chose to include human agency in the plan of salvation, but it is still true. The last part of this entry was written to myself, but I believe it can apply to everyone.

"You thought that there were only two options: one, that there is no such thing as intrinsic motivation because every good thing or feeling came from God, or two, that intrinsic motivation came from a force other than God. Neither of these you wanted to believe, but I invite you now, as has happened to often for you in the past, to connect successfully two contradictory notions. The feeling of the Spirit is a harmony of God's confirmation and your inner self, which of course you do not know much of yet. Intrinsic motivation both does and does not exist. Pleasure, true fulfillment, both does and does not come from God. But pure intrinsic motivation occurs when and only when the will of the individual is parallel to the will of God, because that is when the sweet tones of eternity all align to form one euphonic chord of the infinitum."