Social Motivation

[CharlieHorse]

I doubt this is the right place to post this, but I didnt see any other section that was better.

It seems like an unhealthy majority of the little motivation I have to do anything comes not from specific desires in the given situation, but from wanting to avoid negative social interaction.

Let me explain.

The motivation I have to do homework assignments comes from not wanting to have to face the teacher when they ask me why I haven't done it. When I actually think about it, I don't care about the homework assignment at all. It feels like they're assigning bad social interactions that will stress me out and completing the assignment will prevent that, until the next one is assigned.

Unfortunately, not even this motivates me enough to conplete the assignments because high-school is more independent, and I can get away with not handing in things, and avoid the teacher scolding, or i could play it off cool and make up some BS.
I've become used to avoiding the issues that cause me stress, and shut me down, so I never get anything done.

I want to graduate and go to college because I don't want to feel ashamed around other people that think I'm a loser for not doing so. My priority isn't for my own benefit from the graduation and college, but from the social aspect.
I don't want to get a bad grade because my parents and teachers will ask me about it and get involved.

I think this way of thinking is very damaging, to me at least. I have become socially avoidant, and lost just about all of my own aspirations for success and happiness. I think my loss of own aspirations is a cause for this "social motivation" type of thinking, perhaps from depression, and many years of being a social outcast, and teased in elementary school.

I guess I'm just realizing that I'm like this, and it's so ingrained into my thinking, that changing it will be really hard.

I guess I'm wondering your thoughts about it. Does it make any sense?


Also, this may sound strange, but please ask me questions. It gives me an opportunity to dig deeper. I can then take more info to my therapist and hopefully sort out this stupud brain. Thank you.

[James Dean]

Why is it that you don't want to talk with your classmates? Why are you giving up so easily like that?

I suggest that you talk to your teachers personally and ask if you can do any type of extra credit work or something of that sort. Get together with your classmates, whether or you like them or not and study with them so you can catch up and won't fall behind with homework and tests. Find tutors within your school to help you out.

Don't give up quite yet. I know you don't have a backup plan or anything if you do decide to drop out of school. Give it your all, I have faith in you. :)

[Karkat]

You know, I'm exactly like this, so I can relate.

It is unhealthy. D: I feel like a soulless zombie with no real life aspirations or meaning because of it. I'm not doing it for me anymore, and that's stupid.

[CosmicNoodle]

#relateable #dem-fellz

I'm just like you, I feel like a zombie, no meaning,

[Hyper]

I felt that way through all of school. Minus the social pressure or appearances.

I just felt it was ''easier'' or ''less annoying'' to do the ''boring school work'' than have to deal with the nagging I'd get if I didn't do it.

I don't really believe anyone but a depressed person or some other way messed up person can think this way.

[Pacaveli]

I started to feel like this coming onto my Middle School years. I realized you can't get away with not doing work, or not caring about it. It always comes back to you and you can only lie too much. And not to mention, you're grades take a beating if it continues for awhile.

[CharlieHorse]

I started to feel like this coming onto my Middle School years. I realized you can't get away with not doing work, or not caring about it. It always comes back to you and you can only lie too much. And not to mention, you're grades take a beating if it continues for awhile.

yeah i'm completely aware that my grades will be horrible if I don't do the work, even if i know the stuff better than the teacher.
But the problem is that caring about the grade is also an issue. I don't have any real want to graduate other than not looking like a failure, which really doesn't matter that much to me. I don't have any real wants to motivate me to do anything. :/

[Horatio Nelson]

yeah i'm completely aware that my grades will be horrible if I don't do the work, even if i know the stuff better than the teacher.
But the problem is that caring about the grade is also an issue. I don't have any real want to graduate other than not looking like a failure, which really doesn't matter that much to me. I don't have any real wants to motivate me to do anything. :/

I feel the same. I really hate highschool, it's not that it's hard, it's that it seems like a waste of time. Spending 4 years of my life learning stuff that I will never use (mostly math). You are given an assignment and graded each weak, and getting a bad grade makes you a terrible person, I really hate it. I wish there was no deadline, and if you do it faster, you do it faster, likewise with a slower pace.

Anyway, that was me rambling. :\

[CharlieHorse]

I feel the same. I really hate highschool, it's not that it's hard, it's that it seems like a waste of time. Spending 4 years of my life learning stuff that I will never use (mostly math). You are given an assignment and graded each weak, and getting a bad grade makes you a terrible person, I really hate it. I wish there was no deadline, and if you do it faster, you do it faster, likewise with a slower pace.

Anyway, that was me rambling. :\

I agree
i almost wish that it was something you could choose to do.
Or if you could take a test that would guarantee you graduation, then it'd be great. at least for me. :/

I took some college classes last semester. I took a night class on astronomy and cosmology. It was a class entirely of the teacher teaching and the students discussing and learning.
No homework. And i learned more in that quarter class than i did in a couple years of highschool science classes. It was fantastic, and i love astronomy more than i did before i went in there.
School should be more like that. Finding things you love to learn about for the sake of learning about them and becoming knowledgeable people. No general requirements that take up all one's time, and homework shouldn't be just for making a grade mark.
It seems homework isn't practice as much as it is just giving the teacher something to grade.
School could be so much better if people just think, instead of mindlessly go along.
unfortunately, the whole system is based upon what colleges are looking for in applications, so if they don't change, neither will highschool, middle school, or elementary school.