Facts for God

The physicist Leo Szilard once told a friend he intended to keep a diary "to record the facts for God." "Don't you think God knows the facts?" his friend asked. "Yes," said Szilard, "He knows the facts, but He does not know this version of the facts…Who has not had some confrontation, some choice to make, to stand up for what they feel is right, even when it means going against loved ones, family, friends, or bosses and co-workers? Here are just a few examples of the same situation that occurs in modern life. What do you do when you learn your company or boss is cheating the employees, the country, harming the earth or the citizens? What does a student do when their friend tells them about some mischievous plans they have to deface their school, or worse, to harm students at school? What do you do when a beloved relative, friend or teacher suddenly chooses a course you feel is unethical? What do you do when your friends tease or hurt someone just because they are different from you emotionally, culturally, or with regard to race or religion? What do you do when family or friends ask you to behave according to what are politically correct or culturally acceptable, yet you feel you are not being yourself? Do you stand up against the status quo or peer pressure and speak what you feel is right, or do what you feel is right whatever the consequence; even at the expense of being ostracized or worse? As a result of seeing this human side, we will have an anxiety attack. Unable to decide what to do, we become numb. So with the basic premise laid out, the underlying spiritual or ethical question becomes…How do you choose what is real? How do you determine what is important? Do ethics supersede relationships with loved ones? Do ethics prevail over peer pressure? Is war ever worth fighting when standing up for what you feel is righteous, gets others killed, hurt, or punished? Is there sin attached to your actions during war? Life doesn’t seem to be black and white, but rather many shades of gray. These are basic questions that people today are forced ask themselves from time to time.

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Your Concern for the Future Affects your Actions.

Your concern for the future affects your actions.  All else being equal, people typically prefer things that are enjoyable in the short-term to things that are beneficial in the long-term, but are less pleasant in the short-term.  That is why people continue to overeat and drink to excess even though it can be harmful in the long-run.  It is also why people may opt against healthy foods in the short-term and may opt out of regular exercise.

One thing that needs to be explained is why some people are willing to do what is best for them in the long-run while others are not.  There is a stable tendency for some people to be more concerned with the future consequences of their actions than others.  Indeed, there are two kinds of questions that you can ask people to assess their concern for the future.  One focuses on how much people care about what is going to happen to them in the future.  The other is the degree to which they are focused on the benefit they will get from an action right now.

These questions predicting how likely it is that someone will exercise or eat healthy food does not explain much by itself.  It just says that people who are generally concerned about the consequences of their actions for the future seem to share that concern across many aspects of their life.  Why this concern for the future influences people's actions? The questions about people's concern for the future predict people's motivational outlook.  There are two broad motivational orientations.  A promotion focus leads people to concentrate on potential positive things in the world and on the person they would ideally like to be.  A prevention focus leads people to concentrate on potential negative things in the world and on their responsibilities. A focus on who people would like to be ideally might allow those people to think about their future selves more effectively than a focus on their responsibilities.  People who express a concern for the future consequences of their actions might have a stronger promotion focus than those who tend not to be concerned about the future consequences of their actions.  The degree to which people are focused on the present benefits of their actions should have no reliable relationship to people's overall motivational orientation.

The more people are concerned with the consequences of their future actions, the more they tend to have a promotion focus.  This promotion focus predicts their positive attitude toward the healthy behavior, which in turn predicts their intention to perform that behavior.  Overall, there are people who tend to take care of themselves.  They are concerned about the future consequences of their actions.  That concern influences their motivational state.

We need to know the true relationship between motivational state and concern for the future.  Does concern for the future causes people to take a promotion focus or does it work the other way around?  Does viewing the world in terms of potential gains make one more concerned about the future?  If you manipulate someone's motivational state, will that really change how much they pursue activities with long-term rewards?  There are many ways to affect whether someone adopts a promotion mindset.  Would these methods get people to take better care of themselves?

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