Motivation

“There are essentially two forces that motivate people: self-interest and fear”.

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your position with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

In the above statement the speaker claims that people are motivated only by fear and self-interest. The claim relies on the belief that human beings are selfish, uncaring or even egoistic. In my opinion, this statement oversimplifies human nature, ignoring other important motivating forces like helping others, explore unknown and many other vital elements that drive people to act. Different things might motivate people. In this discussion I shall present arguments favoring fear and self-interest as motives to act, as well as give an example of the other strong motivation force of altruism.
On one hand, I agree that most of our actions result in large part from self-interst and from our survival insti...