Reading Inquiry - Motivation

Motivation is something that brings us the courage to do something important for ourselves. In my reading groups reading inquiry we asked, "What things do you notice (in a book or real life) that people do to motivate other people to do good things?" We all had many things to share. I going to just highlight a few of the ones a did. Because I want to let my group share their great observations.

So, for books I obviously chose 1984 by George Orwell as a main example since I am still reading it. In 1984, people are forced to not think bad things (if they do they will be arrested by the thought police), their thoughts are constantly monitored, which motivates people to think freely, out of the box and for ourselves. Also, in 1984 I noticed Winston, who I imagine to be a small person (maybe around 5 foot 4), who's very weak, and is a goody toe-shoes wants to do a big thing and break out of his little thought prison, which is something big, considering the thought police try to monitor everyone's thoughts. This motivates smaller, maybe even people who are very timid to make something of themselves. 1984 is the most thought provoking books I've ever read and I'm going to talk a lot more about it.

In real life there are many things you can do that are kind things you can do to motivate someone or many people. I focused on something little for this first one. Just holding a door open for someone is the gateway to a chain of motivation to do good things. For example, you hold a door open for somebody, that person does something good to motivate a few other people, and on and on. This next one is about Hurricane Sandy and that storm in Illinois a few weeks back. The amount of people who are helping the ones who got hit really badly by the storms were incredible. There still cleaning up for both. Just the people who are donating all there time to help the less fortunate are doing something that will motivate everyone to do something amazingly helpful.

Social Justice

Social justice happens everyday. No matter how big or how little, it's still something good that helps us in the long run. The whole thing of social justice is to maintain equality for every single person on earth. Social justice is the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits for economic growth for a society. This is shown in two different ways, one is through books, and the other is through our everyday lives.

Books sort-of transfers the knowledge of social justice to you. It can give you a sense of kindness. It can inspire you to do good things for random people you meet off of the street. The things you witness in books have a subliminal message that gives you something that can bring you towards doing the right things, or showing you something terrible that happens so you can improve yourself as a person off of it. A book that really gives you a sense of social justice is Animal Farm by George Orwell. It shows a higher class discriminating against a lower class. Which, as I said previously makes you at least want to help the lower class out a bit. I mean giving something or helping someone less fortunate then yourself gives you a really little bundle of satisfaction.

Outside of the book world, we tend to help others out. By lending them money or maybe donating to an organization to raise some money for a certain thing. Really, anything you can do to help someone is just worth it completely. I notice this a lot. For example, when Sammy in the 8th grade has passed away a week before his barmitzvah, he wanted to donate some of the money given to him to a charity. He had told a few of his friends that. And his friends are trying to raise money to give to the charity. Something as little as a penny is going to help a lot of people. There are also people who on the subway give away their seats to pregnant women or people with a handicap. So that they can sit down and relax without a worry. I love when I see people do that. I try to help these people out as much as possible. I love to see them smile and be just really greatful that there are people in this world who care about what's happening to them.