Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Three Reasons People Take Action
What is it that makes you do what you do? Have you ever wondered if there is a better way to live your life? Today you are going to discover yet another key to a successful life. The reasons you make choices and those choices lead to actions.
In this world there are three reasons that people make choices that cause them to take an action. Those three things are; pain, pleasure, and duty. Since duty is a bit more involved we will leave that for last. So let us discuss the first two, pain and pleasure.
Most of the people in this world live their lives driven by pain. They take action only when then pain of taking action becomes less than the pain of not taking action. In other words to keep things the way they are, is less painful than change. Since the majority of people live in this manner it is no wonder that we have so many problems and are easily led by others. When a person becomes comfortable with their surroundings and way of life, they become afraid of change as they feel it will be uncomfortable to change, painful to do something else.
This comfort zone is what causes our problems in the first place. As conscious cognizant intelligent beings we should be able to recognize when we need to do something different, yet for some odd reason most of us wont. We keep doing the same things over and over, hoping for something different, but afraid to do something different as it might be painful.
Let us use the example of Mister John X. John comes home from work and plops on the couch. He knows he is hungry and should either get or make some dinner, yet he doesn’t as he is comfortable on the couch. He then takes a nap, and wakes up even hungrier, but there is a good show on the TV so he again fails to procure dinner. After the show he is still hungry but it is getting late and he needs to go to bed to get some sleep so he can wake up on time for work. If he is late again he will lose the job that he hates, but he needs it as it pays the rent. So he grabs a snack and goes to bed a little hungry. The pain of doing something different was greater than the pain of not taking action.
Now let us discover the other way of making choices; pleasure. Some of us do things because it gives us pleasure. We garden, eat our favorite food, read, write, do puzzles, scrap book, etc. etc. etc. We do these things because we want to; we make ourselves do them because when we do, we experience pleasure. It is far more preferable to experience pleasure than pain, so those of us who make choices based on pleasure seem to lead happier live than most others. Not all things are pleasurable when we do them but the result is pleasure.
Let us go back to our fictitious John X. He has discovered that he really likes macaroni and cheese, he like it so much he decided to learn how to cook it himself. He has gotten quite good at it and adds many things to spice it up, bacon bits, mushrooms, scrambled eggs, and so forth. He actually looks forward to the end of the day when he can go home and make some macaroni and cheese. When he gets home he now goes to his kitchen instead of his couch. While the tasks of making his dinner are not all fun, he knows that when he is done with boiling, straining, chopping, stirring and so on, that he will have something that gives him great pleasure. He now has learned to take an action based on pleasure rather than pain. Do you think he will get the idea that pleasure choices can be used for the other areas of life and not just food?
Now on to the last reason, duty. Duty has a few meanings, but it boils down to this; it is something that you are obliged to do. This is commonly found in today’s society, follow the rules or be punished. Not what we are talking about rather is the tasks or service to other people that we need to do. That is the definition we need to examine. In our live we have other people; we do not live lives isolated and alone. We constantly interact with other people, this cause us to develop relationships. From acquaintances, to friendships, to romantic love, we have many types and styles of relationships with people. We have the similar relationships with our surrounding environment too, pets, plants, and so on. To all those things we have a duty to them, something we are obliged to do.
This is the third reason we do things, we make choices and take action because of duty. We have to feed the kids, water the plants, make the spouse lunch, and let the dog out, and so on. We do these duties voluntarily, we want to because we chose to become parents, have pets, get married, and so on. We should have realized that taking on responsibility gave us duty to perform. Some of us did and so we happily perform our duties as they are part of the overall pleasure cycle.
The rest of the people are surprised at having a duty, they thought that getting married meant someone would take care of them, not have to take care of other people. They are shocked that having kids is messy and time consuming. They are confounded that having a pet means you have to feed it and clean it and they don’t all come mild mannered and house broke. These people live by reaction; they react and do something only when something happens. They do only the minimum that they have to, (life driven by pain) to avoid as much effort as possible to try to keep things the same, to stay in their comfort zone.
So here again we see that if you choose to live life and experience pleasure, then the duty choices are simple and quick. You simply make your kid a sandwich before she leaves for school, no complaints, no resentment, you chose to have the child, the child brings you pleasure, so you perform your duty easily and simply. Someday that child will make her own sandwich, but until then you get the pleasure of the experience, enjoy it while it lasts.
What most people still do not comprehend is that it is the individual who makes the choice. That individual is you: You make your choices; you have the right and responsibility to make your own decisions, and take your actions based on the choices you made. You are the one responsible for your actions, so that means you are the one making the decisions to take action. Whether you default that right and wait until you have to make a choice, to live by pain, is your choice. To live by pleasure choice is the better way of life, to choose to do something because you want to is far preferable than the alternatives.
Once you have chosen to live by making decisions that will have actions that cause pleasure you will find that the fear of change melts away. The fear was an illusion, a false cage that only existed because you thought it did.
Change is the one and only constant in life, nothing will remain the same, ever. So since you are going to have to change, you might as well change because you want to and not because you are forced to.
Lead your life making choices based on pleasure, rather than pain.
Be Blessed
In this world there are three reasons that people make choices that cause them to take an action. Those three things are; pain, pleasure, and duty. Since duty is a bit more involved we will leave that for last. So let us discuss the first two, pain and pleasure.
Most of the people in this world live their lives driven by pain. They take action only when then pain of taking action becomes less than the pain of not taking action. In other words to keep things the way they are, is less painful than change. Since the majority of people live in this manner it is no wonder that we have so many problems and are easily led by others. When a person becomes comfortable with their surroundings and way of life, they become afraid of change as they feel it will be uncomfortable to change, painful to do something else.
This comfort zone is what causes our problems in the first place. As conscious cognizant intelligent beings we should be able to recognize when we need to do something different, yet for some odd reason most of us wont. We keep doing the same things over and over, hoping for something different, but afraid to do something different as it might be painful.
Let us use the example of Mister John X. John comes home from work and plops on the couch. He knows he is hungry and should either get or make some dinner, yet he doesn’t as he is comfortable on the couch. He then takes a nap, and wakes up even hungrier, but there is a good show on the TV so he again fails to procure dinner. After the show he is still hungry but it is getting late and he needs to go to bed to get some sleep so he can wake up on time for work. If he is late again he will lose the job that he hates, but he needs it as it pays the rent. So he grabs a snack and goes to bed a little hungry. The pain of doing something different was greater than the pain of not taking action.
Now let us discover the other way of making choices; pleasure. Some of us do things because it gives us pleasure. We garden, eat our favorite food, read, write, do puzzles, scrap book, etc. etc. etc. We do these things because we want to; we make ourselves do them because when we do, we experience pleasure. It is far more preferable to experience pleasure than pain, so those of us who make choices based on pleasure seem to lead happier live than most others. Not all things are pleasurable when we do them but the result is pleasure.
Let us go back to our fictitious John X. He has discovered that he really likes macaroni and cheese, he like it so much he decided to learn how to cook it himself. He has gotten quite good at it and adds many things to spice it up, bacon bits, mushrooms, scrambled eggs, and so forth. He actually looks forward to the end of the day when he can go home and make some macaroni and cheese. When he gets home he now goes to his kitchen instead of his couch. While the tasks of making his dinner are not all fun, he knows that when he is done with boiling, straining, chopping, stirring and so on, that he will have something that gives him great pleasure. He now has learned to take an action based on pleasure rather than pain. Do you think he will get the idea that pleasure choices can be used for the other areas of life and not just food?
Now on to the last reason, duty. Duty has a few meanings, but it boils down to this; it is something that you are obliged to do. This is commonly found in today’s society, follow the rules or be punished. Not what we are talking about rather is the tasks or service to other people that we need to do. That is the definition we need to examine. In our live we have other people; we do not live lives isolated and alone. We constantly interact with other people, this cause us to develop relationships. From acquaintances, to friendships, to romantic love, we have many types and styles of relationships with people. We have the similar relationships with our surrounding environment too, pets, plants, and so on. To all those things we have a duty to them, something we are obliged to do.
This is the third reason we do things, we make choices and take action because of duty. We have to feed the kids, water the plants, make the spouse lunch, and let the dog out, and so on. We do these duties voluntarily, we want to because we chose to become parents, have pets, get married, and so on. We should have realized that taking on responsibility gave us duty to perform. Some of us did and so we happily perform our duties as they are part of the overall pleasure cycle.
The rest of the people are surprised at having a duty, they thought that getting married meant someone would take care of them, not have to take care of other people. They are shocked that having kids is messy and time consuming. They are confounded that having a pet means you have to feed it and clean it and they don’t all come mild mannered and house broke. These people live by reaction; they react and do something only when something happens. They do only the minimum that they have to, (life driven by pain) to avoid as much effort as possible to try to keep things the same, to stay in their comfort zone.
So here again we see that if you choose to live life and experience pleasure, then the duty choices are simple and quick. You simply make your kid a sandwich before she leaves for school, no complaints, no resentment, you chose to have the child, the child brings you pleasure, so you perform your duty easily and simply. Someday that child will make her own sandwich, but until then you get the pleasure of the experience, enjoy it while it lasts.
What most people still do not comprehend is that it is the individual who makes the choice. That individual is you: You make your choices; you have the right and responsibility to make your own decisions, and take your actions based on the choices you made. You are the one responsible for your actions, so that means you are the one making the decisions to take action. Whether you default that right and wait until you have to make a choice, to live by pain, is your choice. To live by pleasure choice is the better way of life, to choose to do something because you want to is far preferable than the alternatives.
Once you have chosen to live by making decisions that will have actions that cause pleasure you will find that the fear of change melts away. The fear was an illusion, a false cage that only existed because you thought it did.
Change is the one and only constant in life, nothing will remain the same, ever. So since you are going to have to change, you might as well change because you want to and not because you are forced to.
Lead your life making choices based on pleasure, rather than pain.
Be Blessed
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