Autonomy

What a great word. If I hear or read that word I instantly feel a decrease in tension and anxiety as well as a boost in excitement and motivation. I never fully realized how important autonomy is to me until last semester, in a "Leisure in Contemporary Society" class. (Which was, by the way, not even one tenth as fun, easy, or interesting as it sounds) But, nonetheless we talked a lot in that class about autotelic experiences and how leisure must intrinsically motivated in order to be truly satisfying and rewarding.

It was of course, at this point that I pointed out the flaws in a traditional grading system to my teacher, and how the extrinsic devices often used to "motivate" students rob schooling of the truly rewarding educational experiences that could much more often result. I was just being snarky, as I am increasingly more often prone to do in academic settings, but she actually ended up agreeing with me, but then of course said there was nothing that could be done to fix it. I am much more convinced that nothing will be done, even though it could, but certainly not without sacrificing a great deal of control, which is too highly valued by the earth-type powers that be to give up lightly.

But I don't mean to drill into the evils of grading or anything in this post, I only brought it up because of how I was affected recently by an assignment for my business communications class. I was recently assigned to start and write weekly in a blog, something I was going to try to get back into anyway now that the summer is over and I am getting back into the swing of things. So at first I was excited that this assignment lined up perfectly with my current plans, but when my break between classes came, I felt no desire to blog in order to fulfill the requirements of a homework assignment. Instead I determined to start a new blog and paste previous posts from this blog each week.

You might be thinking at this point that I have serious issues with authority, and you might be right. The second I am told to do something, it often becomes repulsive to me. There is one exception to this rule, and that is if I feel like the person telling me to do something loves me and has my best interests at heart. Whether or not they actually have my best interests at heart does not matter. It is my perception of their motives that influences my behavior. I have never had a problem being told what to do by God, my parents, siblings, or loving church leaders, teachers, or even managers.

As usual, I'm not sure where I am going with this. I am not convinced that it is a bad thing that I feel this way or not. It is just my opinion that we could all have a lot more meaningful and satisfying experiences if we find things that we love for their own sakes and do them. Or even of we find things that we consider valuable, albeit lacking in entertainment value and push through on our own without needing to be pushed. Would the structure of society collapse entirely if there was a little less constraint, force, and compulsion, and a little more persuasion, long-suffering, and love without guile? I for one think it would be worth the risk to find out.