Be aware of your motives when making decisions

"You know, I think you've got mixed motives -"

Mixed motives. It's usually not meant as a compliment. It suggests that we have more than one reason for what we are doing. And it implies such mixed motives mean we somehow aren't being totally honest, upfront or open.

In psychology we talk about "multidetermined behavior" (leave it to psychologists to come up with a phrase like that). What we actually mean is that we have mixed motives for everything we do, and that it is OK.

For example, the other morning my friend's truck had a flat tire. I offered to stick around after our breakfast together to help him get it fixed.

I had mixed motives.

First, I wanted to be a caring, giving, helpful person. It's one of the values I try to live by. When I can act on this value, I do.

Second, I see such behavior as part of the give and take of being friends. Pragmatically, I'll help him out this time, with both of us expecting that he will do the same for me sometime. It is an "unwritten contract" in our (and most) friendships.

Third, I feel good about myself when I help other people, especially my friends. I like to feel good about myself. This motive may be a bit selfish, but I can live with it.

Fourth, it gave us more time together. I had to cut our breakfast short to get to a meeting, and his flat tire was an excuse for me to hang around for awhile. And I was reminded of just how good a friend he is.

Finally, I was looking for a reason to miss part (or all) of the meeting anyway. His car trouble was a legitimate reason to be late, and I would just as soon miss out on as much of the meeting as I could. Now, I was not aware of this motive until much later, but it still played a part in what I did. And my awareness of it forced me to ask myself why the meeting was important to me in the first place.

Mixed motives. Some I was aware of, some I wasn't. Some I am proud of, some I'm not. Certainly some of my motives carried more weight than others (I like the first and fourth ones best), but that is often hard to sort out.

What is important in all this is that we become aware of our various motives in any given situation.

Why? Simply put, the more we know about what our motives are, the better chance we have to act on the motives we truly value.

Let's say, for instance, that we are in the middle of a fight with our spouse. We are bound to have mixed motives behind our behavior. We might 1) want to listen, understand, and compromise; 2) get our way no matter what our spouse thinks or feels; 3) punish our spouse for disagreeing with us; and 4) run away from the whole thing.

If we are aware of such mixed motives, we have a chance to decide which one we value most (hopefully the first), and to act on that motive. And we are less likely to unknowingly act on the motives we don't really value. In the process, we also will understand ourselves a bit better.

We may not be comfortable with the idea of mixed motives, but it seems to me we're going to have to live with them. Maybe we should even be glad we have them. They reflect the uniqueness of each and every one of us, and our freedom to make choices about what we do.

Perhaps the next time someone accuses us of having mixed motives, we might just answer, "Sure I do."

• The Rev. Ken Potts is a pastoral counselor and marriage and family therapist with Samaritan Interfaith Counseling Centers, Naperville and Downers Grove.