Why Development?

While in Santo Domingo this past weekend, I had a lengthy conversation with a couple of the other interns, Tim and Nate. At one point, Tim posed the question, "why are you interested in development?" He went on to talk about how when he asks people this, there are generally two answers that one gets. The first answer is religious motivation: "Because God wants me to," or "It's what Jesus would do," etc. The second answer is more secular but can just as easily have a religious motivation by extension: "Because I want to help people."

To which one could ask, why? Why do you want to help people? Why do you think they want your help? When we follow our motivations to their source, we generally find that there's no such thing as a selfless motive. In the end, we're always scratching some kind of itch, chasing some kind of feeling. If we knew that a particular action would yield nothing but bad feelings, we would never do it. We can not help but run towards pleasure and flee from pain. This sounds hedonistic when taken at face value, but when we think of pain and pleasure as being complex entities with a number of different forms, it begins to make a bit more sense. If my grandmother comes to visit my family, and brings a heavy suitcase, I carry it for her. Although carrying it causes me more physical discomfort than I would otherwise feel, my conscience would punish me were I to let her carry it herself. Thus, my motivation for carrying my grandmother's suitcase can be seen as entirely selfish. I am fleeing from the pain my conscience would afflict to the satisfaction of helping my grandmother.

Getting back to Tim's original question, why am I interested in development? Several Reasons. First, how I feel about myself is largely affected by my perceived positive influence on other people (granted, given my level of experience it's debatable how large a positive influence i'm having this summer). Second, as a person I'm very prone to boredom, and so I crave a sense of adventure and feel that this sort of work can provide that. Third, I feel it's extremely valuable to be exposed to other ways of life on a long time-scale, both to appreciate other cultures and to gain new perspective and appreciation for one's own.

I wholeheartedly admit that all of these motives can be seen as selfish, as chasing my own satisfaction in life. The thing is, happiness is quite a complex animal. We can chase it in dozens of different ways. Some of these paths yield positive social externalities, and some yield negative. It should come as no surprise that the paths to happiness that yield positive social externalities are frequently those that require a significant investment of time and effort before they begin to pay off.

So what's the lesson here? That we should try to chase the pleasures that carry the most positive social impacts. It's far from the easiest kind of life, but it may be one of the most fulfilling.