Faith: The Unsung Motivating Factor

Time is money; a familiar adage.  This phrase implies that time wasted is money wasted.  It claims that money should be the focus of every person's life.  We are given time, we should translate it into money.  But is everything motivated by money?  In this age of technology, motivation comes from many different sources.  When the public can communicate, events and individuals can motivate others for their cause.  People all over the world are donating their time and resources without the motivation of money, from building the Linux operating system and compiling Wikipedia articles, to providing relief for victims of the tsunami in Japan.  It is easy to believe that people want to do something good and make a difference in the lives of others.  But I think what it comes down to is faith.  Faith in something more vast than we can imagine.

The first entries written for Wikipedia were in answer to a request from Jimmy Wales, the founder.  There was no shared encyclopedia and there was no evidence that Wikipedia was a good idea.  But the people who wrote those entries couldn't have done so just to pass the time.  They had faith that eventually what they wrote would turn into something much bigger than just a few articles.  Linus Torvalds, the chief architect of the Linux kernel, wanted help writing an operating system.  He didn't know that people would help.  He had faith that he could get people to cooperate and help fellow programmers.  When people in other countries are suffering, churches and organizations gather their resources to help.  Many of these organizations's helpers donate their time and even more people give money, food, and clothing.  None of these projects would have succeeded without the faith of the participants.  Money is a motivator, but faith is a major player in the decisions of people across the globe.