Each person has some built-in motives. Motives are necessary in any thinking
being in order to guide the learning process. The only thinking processes that
do not have motives linked to them are those that are autonomous, which simply
occur on a regular pre-programmed method. For example, a person's digestion,
circulation system, immune system all function autonomously. But all other
behaviors are linked to motives.
Happiness occurs when all motivators are fulfilled in aggregate over an
extended period of time. For the purpose of this discussion, I refer to
short-term satisfactions of motivators as "joys" whereas "happiness" is a
feeling of general wellbeing over a long period of time. Happiness includes how
you feel now, as well as how you anticipate you will feel in the future.
Happiness is also affected by the recollection of the joys of the past, which
you may bring forward into your mind now.
So, what is it that you need in order to be happy?
If you were to make a list of whatever comes to mind, you might include such
things as having friends or a loving family, having good food to eat,
feeling safe, etc. If you think about this for a while, no doubt you could
come up with a long list. Each of these is a motivation, whereby you prefer the
satisfaction over the dissatisfaction.
For planning purposes, it helps to categorize these motivations into groups.
There are various ways you could group them. For the
Pathways to Happiness
methodology, the following collection of motives is used. Fulfilling the
green items as the need arises produces pleasure while the red items
are displeasure that occurs when the need is not met. So people are
motivated toward fulfilling the green items and avoiding the red ones.
We can also use yellow to represent a mild version of dissatisfaction.
That might occur for any of the items, but for categories that are
typically only a mild dissatisfaction, that is shown below in yellow.
Physical Motives
Abundance
vs
Hunger *1
Sleep
vs
Sleepiness
Comfort *2
vs
Discomfort *2
Fitness
vs
Atrophication
Health
vs
Sickness
Social Motives
Love *3
vs
Loneliness
Friendship
vs
Friendlessness
Sociability
vs
Isolation
Security Motives
Safety
vs
Fear
Liberty
vs
Enslavement
Financial Security *4
vs
Insecurity
Intellectual Motives
Curiousity
vs
Boredom
True Knowledge *6
vs
Misconception
Achievement
vs
Discouragement
Mental concentration and work *5
Artistic Motives
Dance *7
Music appreciation
vs
Noise
Appreciation of Beauty
vs
Ugliness
Empathic Motives
Empathic Joy
Compassion *8
Spiritual Motives
Confidence
vs
Anxiety
Hope
vs
Despair
Peace of Mind
vs
Guilt
Appreciation *9
Footnotes for items marked with asterisk (*):
Abundance includes food, water, and air. The lack of any of those is
loosely called "hunger" but actually it also includes thirst and suffocation.
On earth we typically plan to satisfy needs of food and drink together
(for example, during grocery shopping), and in most situations air
supply doesn't need to be planned. So for planning purposes it is
convenient to lump them together.
Comfort includes being in an environment that is neither too hot nor
to cold, as well as having comfortable clothing, sufficient support for
your body without too much pressure at any point, and without any force
that might cause damage such as brusing, abrasion or cuts. Discomfort
is the opposite. In more extreme cases we might call it pain or torture.
However, "pain" might also be associated with ill health, which is a
separate category in this list. So "discomfort" is the term used here,
keeping in mind that it could be rated anywhere from mild to extreme.
Love, Friendship, Sociability: Perhaps these are the same
fundamental motive in different intensities, but there do seem to be some
qualitative differences. Love between people is the most selective,
and it is often manifest with physical affection, such as hugging or cuddling.
It seems to be a prerequisite to feeling O.K. about intimacy
with another person. This is not so with friendship or sociability,
so we typically treat them as distinct motivations.
Financial security is a bit of a misnomer, because people
are not born with any knowledge of money nor desire for it. What they
do want, however, is to feel secure that they will continue to have the
necessities of life and the resources to pursue all their motives.
In our society money is used as a store of resources that one can draw
upon to gain products and services from others, so from a practical
standpoint we can describe this motive as financial security.
True Knowledge vs Misconception is different from
"curiousity vs boredom," because it emphasizes not just an interest in
discovering things, but the desire to gain a correct understanding and
avoid being confused or deceived. This can conflict sometimes with
other desires, such as a desire for hope even in a hopeless situation.
If a person is to avoid deceiving themselves in such situations, the
desire for truth must outweigh the desire for hope. Having
correct knowledge is often instrumental in achieving desired outcomes,
and perhaps that is why evolution may have built a desire for true
knowledge into people. It's not just useful; it's a motive of it's
own.
Mental concentration and work is coloured yellow as a less
intense form of dissatisfaction than red items. It involves the
expenditure of mental or physical energy, and inasmuch as each person
has a limited amount of that available each day, they are motivated
to avoid expending it unnecessarily. A person will not undertake
work merely for the sake of doing work, so we don't rate it as a
positive (green) motivator. However, a certain amount of concentration
or work is necessary in order to accomplish most other satisfiactions.
If unpleasant, it is unpleasant only in a very minor way, so that it
is outweighted by the joy of satisfying other motives.
Dance can be joyful but there doesn't seem to be any
dissatisfaction arising from the lack of it. People might not miss
music or beauty either if they lacked it and didn't know what they
were missing, unless they were confronted with the opposites:
noise in place of music, or a disarrayed mess in place of beauty.
Compassion is an element of empathy, along with empathic joy.
With empathic joy, we feel happy when we observe that others around
us are happy. Compassion occurs when we notice that other people around
us are feeling badly. A person can have a positive motivation to help
arising from compassion, either to remove the suffering (if that is
possible) or to reduce it by consoling the other person. Sometimes,
though, a person with compassion can't do much to solve the problem,
and they will invitably give them some sorrow (represented by
the yellow on the chart). A person needs to be open to compassion
even if they risk feeling worse, rather than closing one's eyes and
trying to hide from reality, because that is the only way in which
people can have any possibility of helping each other overcome
miserable situations.
Appreciation, along with confidence, hope, and peace of
mind, are not things that can be scheduled, and in that respect
they differ from many of the other motives in this list. Rather,
the spiritual satisfactions are a kind of attitude arising from
one's overall life. This set is described as "spiritual" because it is
the term most often used to describe someone who feels good about
themselves and who lives in harmony with the world around them; it is
not intended to imply any belief in spirits or ghosts. Regarding
appreciation: I haven't shown any direct down-side from lack of
appreciation, but the lack of it is a missed opportunity to enjoy life.
Also worth noting: although it takes a long series of positive life
events to build up the spiritual satisfactions, the opposite (red
items) can be quickly spurred from a single event. In particular,
guilt can arise from a single event and the feeling of guilt may
persist for a long period afterward.
This is not a complete list of every possible motivator, but it is an
approximate overview. Satisfaction of the green motivators is a sufficient set
that will bring happiness to most people. And of course, that also requires
avoidance of the red "flip side" for each motive pair.
Note that the joys above include only "cooperation compatible"
motives, which are motives that people in a society can pursue without
inevitable conflict. Malevolent motives such as anger, cruelty, hate, greed,
etc., are not included because of unwanted side effects. For a further
explanation of why I don't recommend that you seek out opportunities to
feel those motivators, click
here.
When planning your daily activities and planning for the future,
you will have the most fulfilling lives by satisfying the motivators
listed in green above. If you are feeling some of
the red (undesirable) results, that is an indication that you have left
a motivator unattended, or worse that you are in a situation beyond your
control. When you learn about ethics and gain wisdom, you learn to put
yourself into the "green" categories insofar as possible, and to help other
people to feel those satisfactions too.
Also, if you have interact with pets or other animals in your life,
remember that those animals have motivators too. Typically the animals'
motives are simpler, with a wide variation according to species.
What might be a "lack of fulfilment" for a human may not
be a problem for your pet. But animals do have many of the same motives, and
for those you need to consider if the animal is in a state of satisfaction or
distress. In our society we put many animals into a state of dependance on
us, and in those cases we have a particular responsibility for their
happiness.
Remember that the greatest happiness is not achieved solely by attending to
personal satisfiers, but by spreading happiness, and by gaining vicarious joy
from doing that. That is why Empathic Motives are very important to include in
the list of satisfiers.
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