The Point and Shallow Motivation

Things coming to a point should inspire a re-evaluation of motivations. Ideally, shallow motivations should give way to deeper motivations. At the very least, shallow motivations ought to be recognized and acknowledged as shallow. The absence of that leaves little room or opportunity for repentance, to say nothing of nurturing deeper motivations. 

Overcoming shallow motivations is often difficult, primarily because they can be so easily replaced with other, equally shallow motivations. Thus, prevailing over one shallow motivation often does little more than create space for some other trivial impetus. 

The reasons for this are many. Suffice it to say that shallow motivations reflect our innate weakness and the innate imperfection of mortal life in this world. 

So, we should not punish ourselves for failing to overcome all our shallow motivations, but we must also resist making excuses for such failures.

We must be sincere about our shallow motivations — see them for what they are, recognize where they fall short, and repent our inability to renounce them and look deeper. 

Most of all, we must not allow ourselves to be lured by the temptation to characterize shallow motivations as deep ones. Giving in to this temptation is a clear sign of intentionally “missing the point.”