Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation

Besides the book I wrote about yesterday, today I started reading a book on Love.
Every book I read, I read because I want to know about that subject. I want to understand. I want to understand so that I can do whatever I have to do more appropriately. However, my luck to find useful books outsmarts me. I'm very random. And I usually pick a book on x subject from x list, randomly. And so far I have been having good results, as in, I'm enjoying each and every book.

So, I went to take my usual night walk and as always I took my ebook reader with me and continued reading my book on Love, which by the way is,  "A General Theory of Love" by Thomas Lewis.

So anyway. I was already reading before my walk, and I started reading a part that asks precisely "what are emotions?" and as a researcher on marketing* I intend on actually talking about that in my future thesis. So I felt for the first time that I can actually start writing.

*I love marketing because it makes me study a whole lot of different stuff.

So my night walk had two purposes. To walk, relax, exercise, listen to music, read etc. AND. I wanted to buy myself a treat for the achievement above. Seriously, I was very happy. I needed to celebrate. This feeling of wanting to celebrate is something relatively new to me.
But wait.

As I read about emotions I gradually got excited. That excitement led me to thinking about motivation and I started making links with a lot a stuff. Which led me to this post. And the keywords so that I can remember what I want to write.

Motivation
Intrinsic Motivation
Extrinsic Motivation
Celebration
Sugar
Reward
Addiction

I give myself a treat every Friday night. It's the last day of the school working week and it's The Big Bang Theory night. During other days of the weeks I might also have sugar, but nothing compares to eating the Friday Night Ice cream while watching the Big Bang Theory.

Meaning. I leave the best to the best. If I gave myself treats, sugar treats, every day not only would be bad for my health, physical and mental, as my Friday Night wouldn't feel as awesome as it feels. In the book "Drive", it actually mention something like this.

If the boss, in order to motivate the employee to a certain task, gives him/her some monetary prize, it might actually work. Temporarily. Because in the long run, if the reward remains the same it will no longer feel like a reward. It became an "addiction". Kind of like sugar, or any kind of special dessert. Or any kind of celebration. It we have too much of it, we no longer FEEL it as a good moment, as a kind of reward. And those moments become meaningless.

The Big Bang Theory is a non renewable resource in the long term, but there's no problem because more shows will appear. So a nice TV show is a renewable resource. Unlike monetary rewards, that are certainly non renewable.
It's great to learn people management techniques. I officially feel (not 100% of course) like I could be a boss. I just need to keep reading.

Nowadays, with all my reading and discoveries, that I (try) to do everything an enjoyable moment. I try to take the best out of the moment, I try to be in the best mood possible to do whatever I will do. This is a vicious circle, because when you're not in the mood, you have to get in the mood. And to get in the mood you have to do things that will get you in the mood.

I am intrinsically driven to "studying" because I want to have a good job. And I dream of working in this business. I want to prove to myself I can do it. I want to be better. I want to be good. I want to win, not particularly to anyway, but win in life, in the journey of the soul.

I study because I want a good life.
I study because I want to be smarter.
I study because it makes me smarter and that enables me to make life more enjoyable.
I study because it makes me feel closer to my goal.
I study because the mechanisms I use to make studying fun make it fun, rewarding and meaningful (AKA I like studying what I like studying).

So I'm having enlightening moments much more frequently, because I'm working towards having them. The only thing missing is sharing these moments and having even more blissful moments with someone else. I know it would be much more meaningful, productive, motivating and fun.

Well that's it for today.
Have a nice new year if I happen not to write before the year ends. ^^