Why People Do What They Do

For many years, one thing that has perplexed me and many of the people I know is why people do what they do. Why is it that some people grow up with a silver spoon in their mouths – with what seems to be a perfect life – end up doing bad things either to themselves or to others? Or why is it that people who grow up with nothing but hurt, neglect, and suffering end up running an orphanage, help build houses or deliver food and clothing for those ‘less fortunate’? What makes a person do what they do? Can self-help strategies help us to discover the answers?
Why is it that some human beings can be so generous and others be so mean; what is it that makes us say we want to do one thing and then live our life in a totally different way? What creates those internal conflicts and, even more importantly, how can we resolve them?
I mean, why would a person, a guy like Wesley Audrey, do the things he does? This African-American man is in the subway of New York with his 4-year old and 6-year old son and daughter when all of a sudden, beside him, he sees a young, white college student who starts to go into seizures and worse, falls on the subway track, smacking his head and bleeding profusely. As this is occurring, just like in a movie, the subway train is coming full speed. Instinctively, and without thought to his own well-being, Wesley pushes his kids away and dives on top of this man to try to save his life. The train literally comes right over the top of the two of them, missing Wesley’s body and head by one inch. Think about that – one inch! What would make a man instantly be willing to sacrifice his life for a stranger?
And yet, contrast that with someone who takes pleasure in other people’s pain, somebody who lives for torturing someone else – physically, mentally or emotionally – and feels a sense of joy or significance from that. Both types of these kinds of people live in this world, don’t they? Is it our background? Is it our environment that shapes that? Well, if that were true, then you have to answer this question: how is it that someone who has been given everything – unbelievable support and love from their family, tremendous education, economic opportunity – how is it that people like that very often spend the rest of their life going in and out of rehab? Then you have people that have been given nothing; their dignity has been taken from them, they’ve been punished in ways that were abusive, inhuman – mentally, emotionally, physically, you name it! Very often those people find a hunger inside, a drive to learn, to grow, to give. They often become the people that inspire most in the world. We know the stories of the Oprahs of the world. She certainly wasn’t given things.
You see, the illusion that our society tries to teach us is that we are our biography; that biography is our destiny, that the past equals the future. But in any level of personal honesty, we know this isn’t true. Although today, that is the model that drives the most people.
“Why am I the way I am? Just look at my past!” and they blame something in the environment. But what that does is put us in a circular fashion of constantly finding something to blame and ultimately, at some level, we blame ourselves and then nothing changes. They look at self-help methods, hoping they will help. I’m here to say that the path to creating lasting change is a very different path than blame. It’s not finding the excuses, it’s finding the decisions that you can change your life. It’s being willing to identify the patterns that have stopped you.
Check back with us when we will dive into to the human psyche; into understanding why people do what they do.

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