Why do we do what we do?
One day in 1996, I sat in a sweaty little chapel in Argentina, where a remarkable man stood in front of a small group of volunteers and said that the most important question we could ask ourselves each day is:
“Porque hago lo que hago?”
Why do I do what I do?
I have asked and answered that question every day for the last thirteen years, and the answers - when I’m being honest with myself - have been revealing. At times, painfully so.
Understanding why we do what we do is essential if we want to improve our performance and productivity in life. In fact, in doing so we often discover that our beliefs and understanding about ourselves is limiting our potential.
My effort to understand why I do what I do eventually led me to a remarkable book - an 885 page book! - written by one of history’s most remarkable and underrated thinkers, the Austrian Economist Ludwig von Mises. The book is titled Human Action (at the link you can read the book free online in html or .pdf form).
In essence, Mises asked the question, why do people do what they do? Why do human beings take action at all?
Mises is not a psychologist. He is an economist. His interest fixates on why people take the actions they take. He wants to understand and explain why human beings trade with each other, work, make efforts to better their lives and make judgments about which actions will give them desired results. In order to explain human action, he postulates that we have to look at the kind of beings we are and what it is that gets us to act.
Mises‘ statement on this point is concise, insightful, and full of pregnant potential for discussion.
“Acting man is eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory. His mind imagines conditions which suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this desired state. The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness.” (13)
The incentive that impels a person to act is always some uneasiness, or, in other words, a “felt unease”.
Mises postulates that three conditions must hold to make a person act:
1. a felt uneasiness
2. the image of a more satisfactory state
3. the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove (or at least to alleviate) the felt uneasiness
We can also anticipate the onset of a felt unease if we don’t take an action now. So we have a “mental state of uneasiness” rather than a physical one. For example, through experience I might know that if I don’t eat lunch I will get a headache. If I miss lunch and get a headache, I feel unease, and I know I will continue to feel it until I eat. However, this knowledge - that I will get a headache if I don’t eat lunch - creates a mental unease as I approach lunch, a “nagging” knowledge that I had better eat (take action) or else I will feel a further, additional unease (this one in my body).
This morning I woke up with a back spasm. It got worse once I arrived at my office. I felt pain (a felt unease). I had a desire to remove this felt unease and had an image of a more satisfactory state, one in which I did not feel pain. I concluded that if I took some ibuprofen my back pain would cease, or at least my felt unease would be lessened. I also knew that if I failed to take action my condition would worsen, and I felt unease about this knowledge as well (an anticipation of additional unease). So I had an expectation that there was a purposeful behavior I could take to fulfill my desire to remove the felt unease and to prevent future unease.
Because of these three conditions, I opened my drawer, took out a couple of Advils, filled a glass with water, and swallowed the pills. All of those actions occurred as the result of the three conditions holding.
As I think about my actions throughout the day, I’ll see that most every action I take is either a somewhat passive response to a felt-unease that has come upon me, or a pro-active response to prevent a felt unease from coming upon me.
Think about some of the actions we take, and why we do it.
Paying taxes.
Feeding our children.
Servicing our debts.
Exercising.
Telling our spouse that we love her/him.
Putting antiseptic on a cut.
Filling our car with gas and changing our oil.
Going to a movie.
Donating to charity.
As you take actions today (and everyday), ask yourself how your actions might result from the three aforementioned conditions being met.
In future posts I’ll further discuss the type of beings we are - beings whose feelings provide feedback which signal us to act. We’ll discuss why pain is a gift. And we’ll discuss how we identify ends and employ means to achieve them.
But for today, let’s just ask ourselves,
“Porque hago lo que hago? Why do I do what I do?”
Why do you do what you do? Does thinking about this and applying Mises model help you better understand yourself?
Remember that every time you have a desire to get better at something, or every time you make judgments about what has value for you, you are likely experiencing some form of “felt unease” that you are trying to alleviate.
If you need help understanding or changing your actions so that you might more successfully remove your “felt unease”, contact me.
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