On shame and motivation

[jethrien]

It occurs to me that one of my big motivators is shame, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing. mithrigil had a post a week or so ago about how much happiness depends on effort-that so often, the easy, comfortable thing to do in the moment is not actually the thing that will make you happy. (Eating ice cream instead of vegetables for dinner, aimlessly surfing the internet instead of working on a hobby you enjoy, staring blankly at something random on tv instead of working out, etc.)

I was thinking, as I was cleaning the toilets and trying to think about something other than how bad bleach smells, that I've set up a bunch of things in my life to get me to do the things that I require to be satisfied, or be embarrassed. We have the weekly gaming dinner, for example. The fact that I have people coming to my home once a week that I have to feed makes me jump through all kinds of hoops that at any given second, I would prefer to be reading instead of doing. It means that at least once a week, I clean the detritus off the table, pick up the clutter around the room, put away shoes, change the table cloth or sweep the floor if necessary. It means that I keep the bathroom within an acceptable range of cleanliness and the kitchen floor not too sticky. It's not that I wouldn't do these things otherwise at all, but I know myself. I would allow it to get past my comfort level, and get increasingly stressed by the clutter and dirt, and yet still not summon the energy to do anything about it until I felt really gross. This way, because I'm embarrassed to have people see my home too dirty, I keep things at a standard that I'm comfortable with.

Same goes for the baking - I love baking creative things, and I get real satisfaction from it. But it takes a lot of planning and effort. At any given moment, I'd rather be passively consuming some media instead of actively doing something. It's not that the gaming group would be horrified and shun me if I served them Sara Lee poundcake or even no dessert at all. But I've got pride to maintain, and that pride makes me get off my butt and do something I get a lot of satisfaction from.

Same thing goes for exercising, so I stay at the level of physical fitness and attractiveness I want to maintain. I joined a writing group, so I'd be embarrassed if I wasn't actively producing and submitting work. Heck, fear of being embarrassed keeps me doing a reasonable level of work at work instead of surfing the internet all day. In all these cases, I feel better, and I know I feel better, when I do the harder thing. But on my own, I have a terrible time overcoming inertia to get them done. If left alone, I'd do almost nothing and then feel like a fat, lazy failure at the end of the day. (I literally feel vaguely ill when I've accomplished nothing with my day.) But that tweak of embarrassment not to live up to the image I'd like others to have of me makes me do the things I know I'd rather have done.

Comments

[shnayder.livejournal.com]

Great post. As usual, you manage to clearly state things that are just hovering around in the corners of my brain. I'm realizing that my new job as a resident tutor is going to give me more incentives to do things that I might otherwise not get around to. It's great :)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Mostly, I'm trying to articulate the stuff hanging around the corners of my own brain. I'm pretty interested in figuring out why I fail to do the things I know I need to do to be happy. 'Cause I'm pretty interested in being happy.

[wavilyem.livejournal.com]

I think I know what you mean. I often think of it like an exothermic chemical reaction. Even though the universe likes low entropy, unless you can make it up the hill with some extra energy, you're never going to be able to make the reaction happen. So if you use that analogy, shame acts as a really good catalyst.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

See, if I set up motivators like that, I just end up resentful and deliberately resist. Setting up situations on potential shaming makes me mad at the potential shamer, not motivated.

In work/academics, I guess part of my motivation is not wanting to fail at something when I know I could have succeeded if I worked harder (Worst. Feeling. Ever.). But the motivation is more wanting people in authority to really, really like me. I'm a teacher's pet. Always have been.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I think about my life in terms of kinetics all the time!

For example, in the processes at work, my boss reviewing something is the step of the reaction with the highest activation barrier, which means that I like to give her a lot of lead time to maximize the possibility of making it over the barrier before the deadline.

And people say I'm wierd...

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

You are weird. Given that basically everyone reading this is highly (over?) educated and really geeky, we have a lot of weirdnesses in common.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Shame is a good motivator. I might lounge forever working and never go back to school otherwise.

Also: Writing Group! We need to organize it again, or have you found another that's better about meeting?

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've got a lot of that, too. Sometimes it's a good things, sometimes not.

To some extent, actually, I want everyone to really, really like me. Which has the weird and not-good effect of making me more willing to demand sacrifices of people whose affection I'm sure of to obtain the liking of strangers. (For example, shushing Chuckro when I think he's being a hair too loud in a museum so that other museum goers won't think badly of him and, by extension, me. Never mind that this hurts his feelings, which I actually do care about, to preserve the mild good will of people I will never see again and who may or may not have even cared.)

[wavilyem.livejournal.com]

I also like using/abusing calculus terminology out of context. Like, "wow that guy's learning curve has a zero derivative".

But yeah, it sounds like we'd have no problem geeking out :)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I joined a semi-pro group ecmyers helped set me up with. It's motivated me to actually submit like I keep meaning to. I've currently got two pieces out, one more waiting for a submissions window to open next week, and another that needs to turn around again, as I got the rejection yesterday. That's four pieces actually in the pipeline! Yay!

But I wouldn't mind trying to set up a random social gathering, just to see folks again.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

After you spend enough time in science and engineering, you develop an efficient terminology for describing a lot of human states and interactions. Unfortunately, it's a terminology that most people don't understand, so I guess it isn't so efficient after all...

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Could I vote for a random social gathering after this weekend, but before 9/23?

[beastin.livejournal.com]

Great post!

Speaking of aimlessly surfing the internet... Night folks!