Motivation: It's All About You

Motivation: It’s All About You

(Something to Consider)

Walter Shaub resigned as director of the Office of Government Ethics earlier this month. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, his resignation came after his very public criticism of the current administration. There is plenty of room for disagreement with this administration; however, one of Mr. Shaub’s public comments caught my attention. In a television interview, he made the statement that, "America should have the right to know what the motivations of its leaders are…” My immediate thought was, “How can I know that? How can anyone know that? How does one assert that 'right'?” 

Motivation is a word that is tossed around as though people know what it means and understand what they are saying. Here is a note from one psychology discussion of the topic.

What is Motivation?

A motive is an impulse that causes a person to act. Motivation is an internal process that makes a person move toward a goal. Motivation, like intelligence, can't be directly observed. (Sparknotes)

As much as I might like, I cannot know with certainty what your motivation is for any action you take or any behavior you exhibit. In many cases, you may well not know yourself. Your motivation can be neither directly observed nor identified. I might draw an inference regarding what your motivation might be, but I cannot know it with certainty.

The upshot of this is that when you make an assertion about the motivation of a public, or any other, person, you are inferring their motivation based on what you believe it might be in the context of your life experiences and how you believe you would be motivated in similar circumstances. Your inferences about THEIR motivation reveals more about YOU than it does about them. Because, after all,

It's ALL about YOU and NOT about THEM!

Submitted for your consideration.

As always, your comments are invited and appreciated.