More on Negative Motivation

It's very motivating to see people who have an active research career, who publish a lot, and who have made a name for themselves in their field of knowledge.

It is, however, even more motivating to observe those academics who spend their lives making extremely inventive efforts to avoid doing research. For them, research is a bothersome requirement they need to pretend to fulfill every year. It's a column on a merit report form that needs to be filled somehow. It's an annoying reminder that they are not real scholars.

For nothing in the world would I agree to become a person whose merit report overflows with committees but has next to nothing in the research section.

Inertia, laziness, and fear of rejection conspire to defeat my drive to do research. Thank God for those of my colleagues who remind me of the sad future that awaits me should I give in to the temptation to coast by on very little research.

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