Thought 8: Why do we have a love hate relationship with rewards? - Also 47 days left in the year...

So, it looks like I may have to chalk this blog up to a horribly failed experiment.

Or not!  If I do a blog post every day for the rest of the year I can do it.  52 blog posts in one year.

Let's do this.

Thought 8

There is a lot of talking and writing about rewards especially in a religious context.  I have heard many times in my life about how many rewards await me in the afterlife (because I'm on the right team TM!).  But I've also been told that I shouldn't work for these rewards.  That having done the work should be sufficient reward.

I have frequently heard people talk about 'bribing' their children to do things they should do.  That has a very negative connotation.  I believe the thought pattern is the kid should be willing to do the right thing because it is right.

I think this is a very attractive idea.  It seems very pure.  We do right because it is right and not because of a promise for something pleasurable.  Doing the "right" thing shouldn't be a chore it should be a pleasure.  We don't want to spoil our children by teaching them to do right only because it profits them.

But God promises us rewards.  We know He isn't a bad example to follow.  So, how do we reconcile these two ideas.  Is one of them wrong?  Do they point to an underlying truth about who we are?  I think that is more likely to be the point than some kind of tension between the two ideas.

We are broken people.  Sometimes our appetites and desires are good.  Sometimes they are not.  Sometimes we want things that are bad for us.  I think that makes rewards a very practical tool for aligning our desires with what they should be.  This leads us to looking at rewards in such a way that we can try to avoid the pitfall of "doing things for the reward rather than because it is good".

Rewards have as a purpose getting us to experience the goodness of God.  Giving to others is good for us on many different levels.  God puts incentives for us to give even before we understand this.  The point of the reward is to get us to go along with the plan so we can experience that doing these things do produce their own rewards.

We don't always look at the long term.  The Bible talks about Jesus enduring things he dreaded (the cross) for the joy of seeing mankind redeemed.  He saw the long term.  Rewards are a way to train us to do the same.  Sometimes we need a reminder that we're doing something with rewards (rewards in heaven!) so we keep doing it until we learn that doing the thing is both good for us and good for others.

Best analogy I can come up with is the reading program in my elementary school.  I love pizza.  My school offered pizza for reading a certain number of books.  So I read a lot of books (I already enjoyed reading, but stay with me here).  Now I continue to read books.  I have outgrown a need for external stimuli to move me towards reading books.  I value reading because I have experienced that reading is good for me.

There are days when it is hard to be nice to jerks.  When I think of the external reward for being nice I can be nice.  Then I see the natural outcome of being nice making my life (and the jerk's life) better.  The more times I do that the deeper the truth that being nice is good for everyone sinks into my bones.

So there is nothing wrong with rewards.  It isn't bad to like thinking about being rewarded for doing good things.  It isn't wrong to reward your child for doing something good (remember you only 'bribe' someone to do something wrong, if it is for doing something right it is a reward).  But I do think that the reward of performing a loving act and seeing the people around us helped and changed is greater than thoughts of silver and gold.

Addendum - Now ultimately life is a lot more complicated than the examples I used above.  They take a more conditioning/humanistic model of things and I don't think that is a robust explanation of how we work.  We are motivated by a lot more than just carrots and sticks.  Seeing God's love for me has changed me a lot more than rewards/punishments ever could.  But in our every day life sometimes they act as practical things that influence our immediate actions.