Generational Motivation
Leo Cho
Throughout my first two years of college, I have met many different types of people from
all walks of life, and as I sit and watch students go to class, the library, or sit as I do, a common
theme I have constantly experienced in my pursuit of higher education is that many of these
individuals around me lack motivation and love for their education. Education is freedom and
power, and seeing people throw it away frustrates me. Thomas Hobbes has helped me realize
why I might be so irrationally driven in academia compared to my peers.
Technology-induced instant gratification from social media and AI has ruined my
generation’s motivation. Laziness is now rewarded, while discipline, hard work, and critical
thinking are called “trying too hard”. This attitude is not sustainable. We are a generation of
shortcuts, expecting results immediately, and looking for any way to avoid real effort. It plagues
all of us, even me.
Now, why this plague may affect me less than others could be explained by Hobbes.
Thomas Hobbes calls a pre-authority world “The State of Nature.” He believes that in this world
life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” and “a war of all against all.” We should
be so deeply afraid of the “State of Nature” that we would do anything to avoid falling into it. He
goes on to explain his social contract and the creation of the sovereign.
The main idea in Hobbes’ thinking that I have found applicable to myself is that fear is
the greatest motivator. We would not come together as human beings because we love society;
we form societies because we fear what life would be like without it.
My “state of nature” is the pre-education world. Where I was before I went off to college.
Of course, my hometown is not a warzone, and life is not “nasty, brutish, and short” there. But
there is no opportunity there as there is here. It is like Plato’s cave. I have escaped the cave and
gained an insurmountable amount of knowledge compared to life in the cave.
To tie it all together, I fear that cave. The pre-education world. The fear of that has caused
me to be driven and loving of my education. Because I would rather be in class than back home.
Naturally, I thoroughly enjoy going to class and learning, but the fear is always there, lingering
and keeping me in check. Though I have made peace with this anxiety. It has kept me out of my
“state of nature” and allowed me to thrive. It is arguable whether this obsession with fear is
healthy, but there is no denying that it works.
What my peers lack is the fear that I have. They have no motivation to learn or love their
education because there is no fear motivating them. It could be that the “state of nature” that
exists for me does not exist for them; thus, there is no fear driving them. I believe I have much
more to lose if I fail than others around me do, and that is what keeps me going. My standards
may be high, and everyone's situation is different, but anyone pursuing an education must be held
to some standard.
This fear may have been obvious, but Hobbes has brought clarity, helping me define
what I see around me and how I feel. People used to attend university for the love of learning,
academia, and to become a liberally educated member of society. This outlook on education has
been lost. In modern times, most people attend college for future and better job opportunities.
There is nothing wrong with this incentive. I myself feel this way too. I want to be employable,
but without the formal motivations for schooling combined with the latter, education is a means
to an end. Without our full appreciation and focus on our higher education, how can we truly
become free and powerful?