Steve-ism number 1

You may be asking yourself, “What is a Steve-ism?”  A Steve-ism is simply a thought on life that my brain has found to contain truth.  You may not agree with every Steve-ism.  If that is the case then you should develop your own (insert your name here)-ism.  Enjoy.

STEVE-ISM #1:  PEOPLE DO WHAT THEY WANT TO DO.

Yes, I truly believe that people will always end up doing what they want to do.  This hypothesis has only come after lots of self-reflection and observation of human behavior.  Since ole’ Adam and Eve messed up way back in Genesis 3, humanity has been infected with the disease known as selfishness.  (By the way, Genesis 3 is on page 3 of my pocket Bible.  Seriously, couldn’t humanity go a little longer without jacking up God’s plan?)

Let’s look at a simple scenario that might put some meat on the bones of this Steve-ism.

Say one night you want to go out for dinner.  You jump in your car after making that decision and head towards town.  You are by yourself so you think, “What do I want to eat?”  The entire thought process is about you and your desires.  You ultimately decide that you want to eat Taco Bell and you go get it.  This is a basic example of somebody doing what they want to do.

I can hear the skeptics now, so let’s modify the scenario.  One night you and your significant other decide to go out for dinner.  You both jump in the car after making that decision and head towards town.  After looking at all the options, you declare, “I want Taco Bell.  That sounds good.”  Your significant other responds, “No, not really.  I really want Wendy’s.”  You being the perfect significant other decide to selflessly eat at Wendy’s for the evening.  Before you think I already proved my own theory wrong, let me explain.  You did want to go to Taco Bell.  However, you wanted to make that person happy MORE than you wanted to go to Taco Bell.  You still did what you ultimately wanted to do the most.  That is an example where pleasing people is what you want to do over your own selfish desires.

One more scenario:  A teenage guy gets interrupted by his parents during his nightly four hour conversation with the girlfriend.  The parents angrily threat grounding him from the phone, Ipod, car, computer, tv, and breathing if he doesn’t immediately hang up the phone and clean his room.  He drudgingly gets off the phone and cleans his room.  He obviously would rather want to stay on the phone with his girlfriend.  His girlfriend would rather he stay on the phone.  His parents want him to get off the phone.  However, this rebellious punk obviously wasn’t motivated to do what his parents wanted simply because his parents wanted him to do it.  His motivation to do what he did was to stay out of trouble.  So what he ultimately wanted was to stay out of trouble more than his desire to do what he wanted or more than his desire to please somebody his girlfriend.  Still another example of somebody ultimately doing what he wanted to do.

The cool thing is that as we grow in our relationship with God, God begins to change us.  His desires and what He wants starts to become our desires and our wants.  Through being transformed and renewing our minds (Romans 12:2), we start to slowly value, cherish, and desire what God wants more than what we want.  Talk about a life change!  That is good stuff.

There you go – Steve-ism #1.  People do what they want to do.

Chew on that a while.  Tell me what you think.  I can handle it.