For the Sake of the Good

I have watched my motives change over the years, and I am look­ing for­ward to their con­tin­ual matu­rity. There is a funny feel­ing inside that my jour­ney is not unlike that of oth­ers — maybe I am just a lit­tle more obser­vant. At first we try to please par­ents and author­ity fig­ures. For some, that takes half of their lives. Those alle­giances get shifted to insti­tu­tional approval and trinket-awards of honor that make their way to the back of the sock drawer and then even­tu­ally to the trash can.

Some­times, when I am walk­ing home late at night after a long and busy day, I ask myself why I do what I do. Most of the time there is no answer — except for the pat state­ments of the past or the “doing God’s will” sort of super­fi­cial men­tal remark just to end the ques­tion­ing. Nor­mally, I am too tired to delve into my soul for the real rea­son. Maybe I do not want to know.

Lately, I have been putting insti­tu­tional idol­a­try to rest — as well as the ego that loved to be attached to it (and other such brightly col­ored emo­tional rib­bons of approval). A psy­cho­log­i­cal test once showed that I am not moti­vated by money. That is a bless­ing. To me, money is just a stack of tick­ets for the Dis­ney­land Earth-Rides that vary from hav­ing the money to eat — to that occa­sional plane ticket some­where I have never been before.

So, what is the rea­son that I do what I do? I know it can be sum­ma­rized under some head­ing titled: “Doing What I Am Sup­posed To Be Doing” — but there is more. I am get­ting a feel for what it is to do the good for the sake of the good with­out an ego attach­ment to rewards or recog­ni­tion. In the end, the good is all there is any­way. No won­der the Eng­lish word “God” is a deriv­a­tive of the Ger­man word for good.

“And God saw that it was good…” (Gen­e­sis 1) — enough rea­son and reward. Noth­ing else matters.