What happens when a society has no motivation to achieve

• 16
• Jul

Motivation and incentive are difficult to define, but be sure they are very different.  

 Webster defines motivates as the condition of being eager to act or work

Incentive is what you are given to perform a given task in a defined period of time.  Webster defines incentive as a thing that motivates or encourages one to do something.

Some studies have shown when you pay someone for a task, such as solving a puzzle the amount of the incentive does not entice them to solve the puzzle better or faster.  In one study they observed people over three days and paid them for the first two days and the observers were surprised at the results. When the incentive pay was taken away on the third day, in most cases, they lost interest in solving the puzzles.  However, a second group was challenged to solve puzzles for no incentive pay, they observed over three days, the interests was maintained and in some cases increase by the third day.

Kenny Easley, a onetime football great and 5 time pro-bowl nominee, once said for $1.7 million I can play good football, but for $2.3 million he could play great football.  His career fizzled shortly after making this statement.

Our children are not learning about achievement and the pride of accomplishment. One example is they play baseball or soccer and everyone gets a trophy, the same trophy, I guess for participation.  So what motivated the top achievers of those teams?   Maybe it was the parents or maybe the desire to achieve.  Sometimes it is as simple as setting a goal, with a reward at the end.  Is this case, is the reward winning or being the best?

Look at the world today, you will see this in our everyday life, and the best example is the welfare and unemployment systems.  When people were required to follow certain guidelines and be accountable for their actions,  to ensure they continue to get paid, they followed them to the letter.  Under the unemployment rules, you are required to show your efforts to find employment, attend classes and sit through several reviews, to get paid.  Miss one of these and your benefits are cut off.  Welfare once had similar requirements and the number of people receiving welfare, as a percentage of the population, stayed fairly constant.  Over the past four years those requirements were eased or lifted completely.  So what happened when the accountability was removed; the number of people receiving assistance doubled? Some of this can be blamed on the economy, but most is because the accountability was removed.

In reality the government provides incentive not to work and blames it on corporate America and accusing them of being greedy.  If you did not have the skills to make more than minimum wage why would you work, if you can lie on the couch and get paid the same, and never be held accountable?  Drive by homes of many on assistance and not working, look at the condition of their property, their lawns are knee high and trash all over.  Look inside the house and you will find more of the same.  They have the time, so what is the issue; lack of motivation or incentive?

Our Parks Department understand this very well.  What happens when you feed animals, they become dependent and the same happens to humans?   When you provide them with, food, clothes, education, and housing, and no way out, they become dependent.

This leaves the remaining population to fund the government incentives, while continuing to fight through the hard times, getting additional training, working more hours, changing careers and refusing assistance.  This is because of motivation and not incentive.  Motivation comes from personal pride, pride in doing their part, doing better for their family, not accepting their level on the ladder as the norm.  They do not define their destiny by what others say or do.  They do not complain about having to work while other lay on the couch or sail the world on a yacht.  Instead, the dream of being that person on that yacht, setting their sails toward their goals, never saying this is good enough.  Instead, they complain about how much they have to give up because of those unwilling to get off the couch.

Then in comes the government and says it is not fair you have so much while others have so little.  You must give up some of your blood sweet and tears to help out those less fortunate.  Are they less fortunate or less motivated?  Some are less fortunate, but most are just lazy and unwilling to do for themselves, why should they let the couch get cold if they can get it for free.

When someone comes into your home, your wallet, your bank and takes what you have sacrificed for to give to others who will not even give up their place on the couch, how do you stay motivated?  Many don’t stay motivated, because the incentive becomes too great not be motivated.  Let me ask you if you took years to build a home with the most beautiful view in the world, but if a dam was built near you which caused your property to wash away every year.  How long before you would just give up and stop rebuilding?  I am not meaning to demean anyone who needs help, I have been there, and needed the help. I know how difficult and challenging it is to climb out of that hole.

Humans are design to be free and to be challenged.  When we are no longer free and are no longer challenged we give up or act out.  Zoo keepers spend years training animals to listen to, and obey their every command and to do so use food as the incentive.  What happens when the incentive loses its significance?  How many times have you heard about a lions, tigers or elephants attacking the trainer after being so compliant and docile for years?

What do you think happens to humans, the same thing; they give up, lash out or go crazy.

Be careful when you create a society which has everything handed to them and are asked to perform like circus animals.  Soon the animals may turn on the trainer!