Motivation: Why are we moved to do what we do? Ð Part II

By Sanderson Beck

Desire for Pleasure

Once the basic needs of life are met, most people turn to the pursuit of pleasure, fun, and enjoyment. These include finding comfortable places to relax and rest, tasty food and drink, entertainment, recreation, sports, arts, socializing, romance, taking consciousness-altering substances such as caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and other drugs.

Pleasures can be physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Take a sexual relationship, for example. The intense pleasure of the sensual experience is so powerful that it makes anything else pale in comparison. The emotional feeling of being in love seems to transport consciousness to a wonderland of enchantment and dreams. The communication in a romantic relationship can be so intimate and understanding that two minds become one. The oneness of complete union can be ecstatic and transcendental. Words can only point at these marvelous experiences.

The problem with pleasure is that it doesn't last. Usually the more intense a pleasure is, the shorter is its duration. Physical pleasures are rapidly satiated. Emotional joys come and go; when pleasure fades, we suffer the sorrow of craving. Mental and spiritual pleasures are so complex and subtle that most people either lose interest or feel perpetually dissatisfied. Because pleasure is difficult to sustain, it becomes inextricably bound up with desire. To seek pleasure is to desire; and desire is the mother of suffering, because we want what we don't have. This wanting is a kind of hunger or longing or emptiness. Pleasure may come to us without our seeking it, but for most people it is not the pleasure they really want. Thus people spend their time striving for the things they want, which usually go far beyond what they need for mere survival.

A key to happiness here is detachment. If we become attached emotionally to our desire for particular results, we will be unhappy unless those specific results are achieved. This can be difficult; and even when we get what we feel we want, the pleasure tends to wear off after awhile. However, we can enjoy our quest to our goal if we appreciate the experience of each moment, remain flexible to changes and adjustments, and don't torture ourselves with a psychological pain caused by our feeling a lack of what we desire. Pleasure, as well as everything else, is experienced in consciousness which is always now. This now of consciousness includes memory of the past and planning or imagining future possibilities. We can enjoy memory and imagination, but the problem with desire comes when we want those memories or fantasies to be physically real when they are not. It is the disparity between the desire and the reality that causes us sorrow. Either we enjoy memory and imagination for what they are in consciousness, we enjoy what is real for us in the moment, or we suffer aching desire. We can try to enjoy the pursuit of our desire, or we can detach ourselves from it and turn our attention to something else. Desire is only one of the levels of motivation, and it can be transcended.

Ambition for Control and Prestige

Dissatisfaction in the pursuit of pleasure often stimulates people to try to gain greater control over the circumstances of their lives. Personal security is also a factor in promoting the motive of ambition. Security and pleasure are the primary need and gratification concerns of the basic self. How we go about filling these needs and desires is decided by the conscious self. The basic self urges us, and then we consciously choose what to do. The conscious self must mediate between these "lower" demands and the "higher" motivations. For example, the conscious self is responsible for taking into consideration ethical issues and does not let the basic self act out all it urges like an animal.

Thus control of oneself is exercised by the conscious self. The conscious self chooses goals, objectives, and strategies for achieving them. Then using all the faculties available, the person strives to manipulate the environment to achieve those ends. Ambition is very much concerned with the means to the ends. The goals may be from any level of motivation; the effort for control is focused on the success or failure of the methods that are employed. The goal of ambition is to be successful at attaining whatever the person chooses to accomplish.

How a person evaluates that success or failure makes up the person's self-esteem, and the perceived evaluation of others determines the prestige. This is the level where the ego operates, both as the "I" itself (conscious self) and as the conditioned consciousness of the feelings about our self--self-concept and self-image, which are part of the basic self. Combined with insecurity, this can urge us to seek other people's approval in order to feel all right about ourselves. Because self-concept is subjective, different individuals have varied standards. Self-esteem relates both to how high a standard we place for ourselves and to how well we feel we are meeting that standard. The comparison a person makes to others on these standards indicates whether a person feels superior or inferior.

Usually the person who feels superior will try to dominate others, or at least will not want to be dominated; while the person who feels inferior will try to please or get help from others. Either approach can be manipulative and irresponsible. The principles of justice, balance, and responsibility can be very helpful here in realizing the original equality and dignity of each person, even though circumstances may be one-sided. Every person is responsible for controlling herself or himself, and any control allowed to others is either chosen or a violation of freedom.

Interactions of power and control can create much conflict. Aggression can be caused by frustrated efforts to try to control a situation, if the person lacks respect for other people's freedom. Rewards and punishments are used to attempt to control other people's behavior by conditioning them to strive for some things and fear others. In manipulating people, any level of motivation can be appealed to and used as a means of control. In these relationships the manipulator can also be viewed as the one who is manipulated.

Ambition for control and prestige is considered a deficiency motivation, because it is based on a perceived lack of something, whether it is security, pleasure, or esteem. Thus the effort to control our situation is very much interrelated with security and desire. These three basic levels of motivation generally cause us the most pain, sorrow, and trouble. Yet if they are not adequately fulfilled, it is very difficult to experience the higher, positive, self-actualizing motivations. When the lower three levels are well satisfied and balanced, then we have a solid foundation for rising above the basic needs of the rat race and can focus our attention on loving, expressing, understanding, and transcending.

For more writing by Sanderson Beck see http://www.san.beck.org/.