As a continuation of yesterday's post, I wanted to mention what can happen after finishing school if we have become indoctrinated to base our happiness and idea of success on outward measures or that extrinsic motivation. We can take that drive for grades and turn it into a drive for money and material things as our measure of success. And just like we didn't learn to enjoy the experience of learning for learning sake, we could also be at risk for not enjoying our work experience and instead just depend on the pay or what we buy with our earnings as a measure of satisfaction.
Since I don't work for money (when people ask me where I work; I just tell them I don't work, I just lay around eating bon bons), I have come up with my own kind of extrinsic reward system--it's called the check list. In the same way that people that actually work for money use pay checks or material things as their measure (I guess I do this with shopping), I use the check list. I can be guilty of not enjoying what I am doing and depend on checking an item off of my list as my only moment of accomplishment and reward. I am working at getting better at enjoying the process. Now when I clean a toilet, I just relish the moment and because I am thus sufficiently fulfilled, I don't even have to check it off my list. And if you believe that, then go ahead and give me your phone number, I call you to have you donate to Donald Trump's campaign for President.
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