Motivation Level: Anti-Social vs Good People

Have you ever thought why the motivation level of anti-social elements is extremely high compared to the decent, good and God fearing people? This question has always intrigued me for a long time. See the motivation level of terrorists, the dacoits, the street fighters and many more people who enjoy and take pride in spoiling the social fabric. You just have a look in your surroundings also and you will see some people who are anti-establishment/anti-social and you will find that their motivation level is extremely high compared to the many other ordinary people.

As maturity dawned on me and I started observing the happenings in the society around us, at the national level and global level, I started getting clarity on the subject. I came to the conclusion that building anything is a slow process. Be it building of an institution or be it the construction of a building, an infrastructure or a scientific mission. All these need meticulous planning, patience, follow up and you raise a huge structure brick by brick. Or you build an organization over a period of time slowly and steadily.

You definitely are motivated to undertake such a great task which may need years of hard work. Your achievement may be phenomenal over a period of long time. But if you see your achievement over a week, month or even in years in some cases, it may be just incremental. Your accomplishment is at a slow pace and there is no euphoria about what you have achieved. Therefore, your motivation level can be graded as just at an average level.

Now when you compare this with a terrorist, he achieves the results that he wants to achieve in just one shot. It may be just blasting of a building or bombing a crowded market to kill a few innocent people to disturb the social fabric. S/he accomplishes her/his task at a much faster pace. S/he is destructive. Remember that destruction is always much faster than construction. So when s/he destroys something, s/he immediately gets an applause from her/his accomplices though very few in number and that keeps her/his motivation level very high.

Just for an example, let us assume that you wish to clean a pond in your backyard, it is going to take you a lot of time. Imagine after a month or two of efforts by four or five volunteers, you are able to clean the pond thoroughly and you feel very happy. During this period, when cleaning operation was going on, you had to keep on motivating the team that is doing the job. On completion of the job, your team is very happy, satisfied and even motivated too. But just imagine, here is a person who doesn’t want you to get the credit for such an excellent job. He may be your political opponent in that locality. He has to just throw one bucket of garbage in the pond to make it dirty again. He may just do it in a jiffy and feel highly motivated that he achieved the aim of proving that your all effort of last two months was of no use.

Such anti-social elements have been always there in the society from time immemorial. They can’t construct, though they claim to do so. They will be small in number compared to the decent docile people. But these small number of anti-social people will be highly united, dedicated and motivated and therefore many times, they will succeed in their ulterior motives. The society starts suffering then. The good, decent people though in majority have a comparatively low motivation level, lower dedication and there is hardly any bonding between them. They are peaceful to the extent that even if some trouble maker is beating an innocent the next door, they close their window or the door as if it is not to their knowledge. Self-centeredness to this level is cowardice and can’t be regarded as innocence and decency. Such people are selfish. This is inaction and needs to be condemned.

There is a need in the society, world over to unite all the good people to take on the evil forces. If you consider yourself to be a good person and are constructive in nature, join the other positive people. The people who believe in constructive activities, the people who believe in the beauty of this world, the people who believe in the harmony in the society, the people who appreciate diversity, the people who believe in collaboration rather confrontation. When all such good people unite, their bonding increases and their motivation level will go up. The coming together of all the good people will be good enough to diffuse the morale of evil mongers in the society. ‘My way or the High Way’ type of people then will disappear. Let us not remain aloof in the name of ‘Sannu Ki ?’ (How does it matter to me?). We owe something to the society where we live in. As a good citizen of this beautiful world, we have a duty to perform: To make this world more beautiful, more peaceful and even friendlier for our children to cherish a great tomorrow.