I am not sure if I have fully convinced myself of this yet. The most self-aware, self-aware, and self-interested people I know will tell you that the profit motive is the most important thing that will shape your life. We are all motivated to create wealth for the future, so, for example, we all want to be rich and famous. While this isn’t a bad trait to have in a person, in many ways it is only a negative trait.
The problem is when the person who wants to be rich and famous is also the person who feels their life is ruined by their own actions. This is why the “I am rich, therefore I am not miserable” attitude is so toxic. I think our society would be a much happier place if we all just got along with each other and didn’t take each other’s faults personally.
Well, it doesnt seem like it is the best explanation of profit motive, but it certainly appears to be a good explanation of why we would want to make money.
Of course, it does seem that we would all be happier if we werent all so desperate to make money. It would be great if we could all just get along without all the drama.
The thing is, the point of our life is that we all have some sort of ego-driven life. It is not because we have a life, but because we are all part of the one being. You don’t need to do that in your life. It is just that we don’t get to go around finding a way to live our lives that way. We’re all here to make sure we’re not a bunch of cowards.
I’m not arguing that I don’t want to be a part of the one being, but I do think that this ego-driven life is not a good one. I think it’s a rather pointless existence, and I say this as someone who would love to be in a world where no one is at all self-centered. That means no one is forced to do something that is not in their best interest. Which is exactly what our lives are at the moment.
The problem is, we are all so self-centered, that we really are no better off than someone who is forced to do something that, on some level, is not in their best interest. It’s so much easier to say, “well you’re just self-centered, so what’s the big deal?” than it is to say, “hey, if I want to be happy I can just be happy, and I don’t have to do anything.
A person with self-awareness is able to say, “Okay, I’ve made the decision to be happy, so I’m going to be happy.” A person without self-awareness just hits the bottle and doesn’t look back.
Some might argue that being a self-aware person doesn’t make you better off, it just makes you a little less miserable. But I disagree. I think it makes you a lot happier, and I think it makes you more successful.
I’m not sure I understand the profit motive. Let’s say I want to be rich. Wouldnt that make me a more successful person? Maybe even more successful. But if I wanted to be more successful, wouldnt I just do more things that make me more successful? I mean, people like to talk about being an entrepreneur, but it’s not like those people would be more successful if they went out and did more things.
