<p>Here is the question: What motivates people to change?</p>
<p>My Essay (exactly as written, including typos):</p>
<p>Many think that human being are capable of motivating themselves to change; I disagree. Humans are hardly ever completely selfless creatures and when they change it's nearly always because of an external influence or motivation. People change to recieve a reward or avoid an unfavorable concequence most of the time. I have seen evidence in literature and in my personal life which supports my theory.
Perhaps the biggest factor that causes change in people is the possibility of reward. The reason we have tests in school is that otherwise students would have no motivation to learn material. Humans naturally do not want to stretch themselves and learn something new - it is rare for a student to want to learn for the sake of learning alone. Schools, thus, have potential rewards (good grades) which may one day bring a student greater wealth in the real world to motivate them to change their nature and study hard.
People also change to avoid punishment. At my school, a student was once suspended for stealing "ipods." When caught, he tried to promise change to avoid expulsion. He said that we would stop stealing. If there was no risk of him being expelled, he would not have done this. Because this child was trying to avoid punishment, and for no "internal" reason, he changed.
Another example which illustrates my point comes in the play, "Cyrano de Bergerac." In this play, a man named Christian is in love with a woman named Roxane. In order to impress her, he pretends to be smart and good with words. This is clearly something he would not do on his own, but nonetheless he does it. The only explaination is his desire to impress Roxane. in this instance, change comes solely from an external sounrce and affects Christian.
I, thus, conclude that people lack the selflessness needed to change with no external motivation. In this way, humans are naturally self-centered. The root of this is ultimately our complacency; we will only adapt when it is required to do so, and we will stick to our ways unless either offered possible rewards or threatened with possible negative concequences.</p>