The Fear of Meaninglessness: Why We Want Credit for Good Deeds
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If you ever wonder what people want beneath the filtered selfies, beneath the refrigerator magnets quoting Maya Angelou look at organ donation.
In a study of 11,672 organ donations in the U.S., guess how many were done anonymously?
Thirty-one (source).
Out of more than eleven thousand people, only 31 chose to save a life without expecting anything back. No hospital wall photo. No GoFundMe shoutout. No TikTok montage over a Coldplay song (this one rocks). Just a quiet, irreversible decision to let someone else breathe a little longer.
This exposes something you won’t find in graduation speeches or embroidered pillows.
There might be a basic human need for meaning (I’m still not convinced - source). What I do believe more strongly is that we’re addicted to getting credit for meaning.
For starters, listen to the donors from this recent study answering the question: Are anonymous kidney donors “lunatics or saints?” Check out the motivations they provided…
Some samples are harder to recruit than others. That’s my way of saying that it’s hard to find large samples of kidney donors who are willing to answer a shit ton of questions. Here are 43 who did (source):
Notice what the anonymous donors want. Be a heroic example! Get a self-esteem boost! Get spiritual/religious dividends! And a lot of beautiful things that don’t fit with the narrative (which is why I present ALL the data for you to interpret and blast me in the comments).
Legacy Isn’t What You Think It Is
The most common phrase in social media bios today? Some version of: “I want to leave the world better than I found it.” Also common in beauty pageants.
Sounds noble. Feels inspiring. But it’s only half the sentence.
What most people mean is, “I want to leave the world better than I found it AND I want people to know it was me.”
Otherwise, what’s the point?
Here is the twisted loop of meaning-making.