Does The Why Matter If The What Is Good?

Governments, organisations, agencies and individuals are motivated by a lot of different things. Sometimes, it's love. Or desire. Or greed. Or pride. Or anger. Or hate. Or guilt. Or sadness. Or fear. Or a mixture of these and many others.

People do things. 

A woman works hard. Without her, no one will feed her children.

Is that love, or fear, or guilt?

A man fights fires for a living. He does this because his daughter dies in a house fire that he accidentally started. 

Is that hate? Or anger? Or love? 

A blind man, a writer, invents a system of reading for blind people, called braille. He wants everyone to be able to read.

Is that desire? Or pride? Or envy? 

A Church incites a holy war. They want the infidel to know their God, and not to see their people become corrupted by this new religion.

Is that hate? Or fear? Or love?

The purpose of doing something for many people is often lost in the emotion of doing so. A politician may want to change the world. She may even do so. But the fact remains: She gets out of bed every morning because she loves the thrill of power. 

Emotion as a motivator is strong. In fact, it really is the only thing that motivates us as creatures. We still do good things. But they can be motivated by the most horrific emotions.

That begs the question: Does it matter what motivates us? Obviously it matters if our emotions impair our judgement and we change from doing goo to bad. But if they do not, and we continue to act for God when the devil drives us, does it really matter?

I don’t think so. I think that all that matters is what we do. Not why we do something.

The idea that bad thoughts could be used as a motive for good might be unsettling for some, but I find it gives me hope. That even the worst of us can look beyond their base nature, and do things not because they feel the need, but because they can see they are right or wrong. And that they can use whatever it is that drives them to do great and wonderful things.