A large number of podcasts that I listen to attempt to ascertain another person’s reason for doing something. This spans everything from politics to relationships to violence to charitable contributions to every other human behavior.
Sometimes it cracks me up to hear pundits trying to parse the hidden meanings behind a politician’s tweet or, even sillier, to assign a motivation to one of Trump’s latest moves.
First, it’s all smoke and mirrors. None of us know the motivations behind another person’s actions. If we are personally very close to them, they might tell us the truth. Otherwise, the best we can do is make guesses based on our own perceptions, motivations and experiences.
I, however, realized just this week that I already know the answer to the motivation behind every single person’s actions. It’s the motivation factor behavior behind every single thing that I do:
“Because I want to”*
*Caveat: Sometimes the corollary to this motivation is: “…or…at least I want to do this more than the alternative available to me.”