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Motivation

So why are you here?

No it’s not an esoteric question. Not why are you in the universe…why are you reading this website right now? Why do you care about this? Presuming you are reading this for yourself and not for a friend, or for some other reason, then you are reading this because you are considering alternatives to a gay identity.

So why?

What does it matter? Well it matters a lot. In fact when making choices about sexuality WHY you choose something is just as important as What you choose. Sometimes it is even more important.

When discussing motivations, there are two basic kinds. External and Internal

External Motivations:
Most people, when they begin grappling with these issues start with External motivations.

“What will my friends think?”
“My parents will disown my if I did that”
“I don’t want to get beat up at school”
“My family/faith/culture would not approve”
“I don’t want to get AIDS”
“I don’t want to go to hell”

These things are all very real issues. We can’t pretend that these don’t matter. But if your only motivation for considering changing your orientation, your identity, or your behaviors revolves around these things….it probably won’t be enough.

Because at some point, in some circumstance you will be in a situation where it will seem like whatever external force is motivating won’t matter. If you are only not doing something because you worry about what others think, then you will simply do what you want in secret, or when you think your family/friend/boss/spouse/whatever won’t find out. You will act when you think you can get away with it. Or maybe one day you will just be tired and frustrated and horny, and you won’t care for a few seconds about the consequences. At least until they come.

Or maybe you will play by the rules. Maybe you will have a strong will, and you will do everything right. You will do what you think everyone else wants you to do. But ten, or twenty of fifty years down the road you will wake up one day and realize that you are horribly unhappy, and have been for a long time. Perhaps you will be depressed, perhaps you will be unhappy, and not know why. But it will come back to this…you will realize that your whole life you have been faking things, pretending to be someone you aren’t, and somewhere inside of you that will hurt in a way that you can’t ignore.

Some of the saddest people I have ever met are those who did the “right” thing for the wrong reasons.

Internal Motivations:
Here’s the thing: whatever you decide to do, in the long run you have to do it because you want to. Because you believe it is good. Because you believe there is meaning to what you do, the sacrifices that you make, and that when you make the hard choice to say “no” to things, you are also saying “Yes” to other things that are important and valuable to you.

Doing things because they fit with all the rest of who you are, what you believe, what you care about…that is an Internal motivation.

Let’s take the example of stealing. When I was a kid I didn’t steal because I didn’t want to get caught. I knew that if my parents caught me shop lifting that the punishment would be very severe, and my fear of punishment was much more severe than my desire for the candy. But when I got older I got a job working in a snack bar. We didn’t keep good inventory, and there were no video cameras. I was alone working in the snack bar most afternoons. I could have taken any candy bar I wanted, and there was no way that anyone would have known. I could have taken money out of the till, and I probably would not have been caught. But I didn’t. Why? Because I had internalized my motivation not to steal. I had decided for myself that personal integrity was important to me, and I decided that stealing was wrong. I believed stealing was wrong not just because I would be punished if I did it, but because I believed doing it would hurt me and hurt others whether I got caught or not.

External motivations just aren’t a good enough reason for change in the long run.

But what if you don’t know? External motivations are much easier to figure out than internal ones. Sometimes it takes time to truly understand what you want, what you believe and what you value.

If that is the case, it can be a wise idea to put decisions on hold on until you do decide what you want and what you believe. But you can only do that for so long. You have to take time to decide, not just run away from the decision because you are afraid of what the answer might be.

One more thing about internal motivations: they have to be positive in order to be useful. Self-hatred can be an internal motivation, but making choices based on self-hatred will never help you make truly beneficial choices. You have to choose something because you believe there is something good to be gained from it, not because you hate what you are now.