Isagani B. Dulfo Jr.

1, 2015
BSMT-L2

December
Research I

Why Do People Behave the Way They Do?

A person has only two options in life to make, either to live and die
later or die now. For a person who chose the former, he did not have life at
all because when he died, he loses his meaning. But for a person who picked
the latter, he has to immerse himself to a journey of what is it to live
because we dont just live for nothing, otherwise it is not living. Amidst that
journey, he would do a lot of things with varying purpose and whatever the
purpose is, who knows but he alone can justify it.
The same thing happens in our lives, we behave according to what we
deem, believe and stand as our purpose. Merriam Websters Dictionary
defines behavior as the manner of conducting oneself, anything that an
organism does involving action and response to stimulation. It also defines
purpose as the reason why something is done or used and the aim or
intention of doing something. With these definitions ergo we conduct
ourselves in a manner united to the reasons and intentions of our action
base from the stimulation or as a response we give. We people behave the
way we do in accordance to the factors that stimulates us such as the
environment, laws and societal norms. We behave the way we do
empowered by our personal intention of doing it may it be good or bad,
beneficial or harmful, and a solution or problem. Each choice speaks of
contradicting ideas, one being positive and the other in reverse. The
common things we ought to do are: to love, commit mistakes, perpetuate
atrocities, be fashionable, commit crime, get addicted etc. These are just few
examples of what man has already done and are capable of doing. Like
loving, it has been a practice that a person looks or finds someone whom he
felt the affection. Soon, they will marry, mate and have a family. In this
example, he just fulfilled the purpose of procreation but notwithstanding his
very own purpose of doing so. However, it doesnt end there. In the middle,
he can commit violations concerning family relationship such as concubine or
polygamy but before he does this, he know that there are laws governing
and protecting family relationships and a violation of one is commensurable
to a corresponding penalty. This example is an explicit proposition that we
behave the way we do considering the external factors (nature, social

etiquettes, and laws) and the internal factors (conscience, belief). According
to science, humans are literally fickle minded and such flaunts our
polygamous in nature. However, this is defiable by disciplining oneself of
doing what is proper and avoiding promiscuity. This action symbolizes the
edge of every human to any other creatures by our ability to reason out or
be rational because our faculty, namely will and intellect, can decide what to
do and what to keep only in mind. In Philosophical perspective, this very
dogma of a mans reality is absolute. Thats why variation of personality has
birth itself thus giving us different subjective views and outlook in life. It
implies that we assess things upon our subjective interpretation leading to
why we do things base on our personal motives.
Therefore it is up to us how we attach meaning and purpose to
ourselves depending on what type of personality we possess. There are
arguably infinite reasons and unending questions why we behave the way we
do but the fact that we dont just do it with the absence of purpose takes it to
a different angle. It is not the man who came first in the world but the
universe per se and science has proven that. That the world already operates
on its own without a man dominating it. Same rules applies to us that
everything is operating systematically way back before our ancestors or us
came to existence. We came to life because somebody willed it for whatever
their purpose is and that it is bound by a system. It is similar to a person
thrown in a wilderness though the goal is not to go out there by any means
but to fulfill or play the role of making a purpose out of the wilderness,
making it meaningful.