Every single event or incident a person commits is driven by some motivation, whether good or bad. Regardless of the intention, there are two types of motivation Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation. Intrinsic is being motivated by self-satisfaction, and an external reward drives extrinsic. In the memoir The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore, there are a series of events or incidents in the second half of the book that displays that variety of motivation that exists. Having read the book, one may argue that the author Wes Moore was motivated by more intrinsic drive, whereas the other Wes was motivated more by an external drive. The Other Wes Moore is the life of two boys with the same name but two different fates and is filled with fighting conflicts and murder. They are showing how they both had very different lives even though they lived in the same town. One becomes a veterinarian, and the other goes to prison for life because of murder. The Other Wes Moore and the author our most affected by Intrinsic factors because of how both of them were raised. Unfortunately, losing both their fathers at a young age. It is much harder without a father figure and can be difficult with no idea of how to start your life out. This emotional experience can make you choose the wrong path And make bad decisions. The author shows how their lives were so similar but so different at the same time on how they acted, or they handled their emotions, and that Is why their lives turned out so differently.
The author Wes, when first being forced into military school by his mother was very eager to go back home and tried everything he could to make it back home, throughout a couple of years that idea started to change. “I was now a platoon sergeant, a cadet master sergeant, and the youngest senior noncommissioned officer in the entire corps. Three years ago, I’d been one of the insubordinate kids first entering the gates of Valley Forge. In an ironic turn, I was now one of the ones in charge of them” (115). One can see the dramatic change in the author’s motivation, he once upon a time had intrinsic motivation due to where he used to live and his surroundings, now he’s eager to progress in the military with strictly intrinsic motivation, with the plus of the intrinsic motivation of making his mother happy, but he mostly did it for himself. The author, at this point, knows that there are no rewards in the military, no payment for training nothing but pride, and is functioning on nothing but making himself content with his achievements, he’s focusing on the human, not the economic aspect. In the other Wes’s case, his motivation did shift a bit after his friend Levy had told him about the Job Corps. He was a bit speculate because he’d heard about it before, going to the Job Corps was intrinsic on his part, he wanted to get out of the dealing game though he had high motivation while in the Job Corps, he wanted more from it.
After the events of the book, both of Wes’ motivations seemed to have grown from this. The author Wes stuck with a high intrinsic motivation with military school; he stuck with it, graduated, and became a paratrooper. In the end, after all his work and achievements, Wes got what was expected from someone with such intrinsic motivation. “As for me, after receiving the Rhodes scholarship, I spent two and a half years completing my master’s in international relations at Oxford. It was revelatory, exciting, intense, and surreal as Mayor Schmoke promised” (177). Wes’ motivation continued even after graduating. He now is working his way towards a heuristic job in which his intrinsic motivation will keep, he followed by ‘if I continue pursuing a future then I will end up doing what I’m most happy doing”(65-66). The other Wes Moore ultimately came to his downfall after he was found guilty for robbing a jewelry store and killing someone. Getting back into the game made his extrinsic motivation for money to fester more until he stooped to killing someone. Yet again, the other Wes is seen pulling the “carrot and stick tactic” (63-64).
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In more shock than pain, Shani saw this as an opportunity …. She smiled slyly as the blood covered her bottom row of teeth…(Moore 88). In this portion of the book, this was Wes’ mom’s last straw that got him sent to boot camp, but what motivated him to do so? It mentions in the text that he was punching his sister lightly because he was bored, and that is a very intrinsic thing to do. It was the “carrot and stick tactic” in the sense that he was doing something repetitively for the sake of intrinsic satisfaction of getting himself out of being bored. Still, in the end, he got the stick, which in this case was having done to him what he thought was all bark and no bite (Pink 63-64). He did not expect to get sent to military school. When he felt that he was going to get an intrinsic reward of eliminating his boredom, he ended up getting the punishment, in this case, the stick. The Other Wes Moore had a similar situation happen to him. At this point in the story, readers have no hope that Wes’ life will pick up. Wes, after getting Alicia pregnant starts being very sexually promiscuous, he ends up having a one night stand with this girl of an unknown name. Walking out of his house, Wes realized that there was someone out there waiting for his new girl “A tall, muscular, older teenager had stood from the curb when he saw Wes’s door open.
Throughout the entire memoir, both Wes Moores’ have varying kinds of motivation. Still, one can think it’s safe to say that the author stuck with high intrinsic motivation, especially when he started military school. Meanwhile, the other Wes Moore was motivated by money and other extrinsic rewards. Ultimately the author ended up highly successful and grew up with much more pure morals than the other Wes Moore. In the end, what drives you may end up shaping the way your future will be.
