This was a question that arose while practicing meditation last week. I asked myself why I was meditating. I told myself it was because I wanted to lucid dream. Why did I want to lucid dream? Because it was fun. I thought it was strange that meditation, generally thought of as a sacred activity, was just a tool that I was using for my own enjoyment.

I thought of other things in my life: Why do I go to college? So I can get a job and have enough money to pay the bills. Why do I go to Taekwondo? So I can become stronger physically and mentally, be able to defend myself, and it's fun. Why did I volunteer to teach Taekwnodo? Resume-building, and I find it fun.

All of my motivations for doing anything were ultimately things I was doing for myself. I asked myself if there was anything I ever did purely out of the goodness of my heart. I recalled a time I took a trash bag to the woods behind my neighborhood and picked up all the trash along the walking trail. But I didn't do it because I wanted to clean up the environment or do a good deed. I did it because I was sick of looking at the trash every time I walked by.

It's easy to see why someone like a criminal might carry out a bad action, such as stealing or killing. They steal because they are motivated to have enough money to pay the bills, and know that, logically, criminal activity and the price they might pay if they are caught outweigh the difficulty they may have in finding a legitimate way of acquiring what they need.

So my question is, does anyone truly do anything out of the goodness of their heart, or is it all relative to their personal motivations? Take for instance, people who volunteer to be an educator or doctor in a third world country? Seems like a pretty selfless thing to do. But are they doing it because they are genuinely nice people, or are they doing it because they can't live with the guilt that these people are suffering and they are not doing anything to help them? Or is there even a difference at that point?