What's My Motivation?

The Scene:

It's dusk. I'm walking through a parking lot and spy a car with its' headlights on. Visions of tow trucks and aggravation fly through my head. Then I contemplate what to do.

If I reach in to turn them off just at the moment the owner comes along he might think that I'm trying to steal his car. Cops, lawyers, public humiliation and scandal for my entire family.

If I leave them on, the owner will come out to a dead battery.

If I turn them off and walk away undetected the owner will never know I helped him.

But why do it at all?

Is it empathy? Remember the all of the times my car wouldn't start because of a dead battery? Remember the frustration and missed appointments?

Or is it ego? The owner will thank me and maybe even offer me $10 as a reward which I will decline and then hope he offers it a second time so that I can take it while feigning humility. (That works especially well with city folks with flat tires. Stop, pull in your stomach, change the tire and then wait for the tip...anywhere from $10 to $20, depending on the make of car...Domestic = $10...Import = $20...)

Why do we do the things we do?

What is the proportion of selflessness to selfishness?

If I turn off the lights I am doing a good deed for a total stranger. If he never knows, then I am doing it for pure reasons, right?

Maybe. But I will feel a sense of personal satisfaction and pride at having done such a socially wonderful thing (never mind the $10.) I did it because it was good with no expectation of personal benefit...other than the sense of personal benefit that I receive from having done it in the first place.

Jeez!

I can't win.

If I walk by I'm an insensitive uncaring Bernie Madoff, Marcus Schrenker kind of guy. I'm doomed to eternity on the Kharma Wheel and I will forever have trouble starting my car and making an omelet.

I will be forever burdened with knowing that I didn't help what assuredly would turn out to be a little old lady with the possibility of a dead battery and she was, therefore, late getting home and her dog, who had gotten out through the dog door but was too stupid to get back in, ran away rendering moot the old lady's $47.00 purchase of the expensive dog food rather than the $35.oo store brand, and in so doing, lost the $12.00 difference which she could have used to pay the cable bill which would then be shut off making it impossible to watch Days of Our Lives to see whether Heather married Ivan and legitimized the birth of her Autistic twins, Naomi and Martin...

If I turn them off I have to live with myself knowing that I only was thinking of myself and how I would feel for having done such a wonderful thing. My motivations were not Mother Theresa pure. I am no real hero.

The moral dilemma is too great...

Better call a tow truck lady...I'm mulling it all over and I'll have to get back to you.