Incent
To incent another person is to give them a reason. An extension of the word is ‘incentive’. An incentive to shop at the Acme store is that you earn Acme points that can be a discount on future purchases. An incentive to go to IKEA is they have this amazing room full of styrofoam balls that you can let you children swim and play and jump in. Kids happy, I’m happy. Why not, eh?
Incent is a close cousin to incense, as in becoming incensed. That is a motivation from anger and such. Powerful incentive that we sometimes don’t want from another person. Thing is, sometimes a person becomes incensed all by themselves. And yes, sometimes I can be the source of it. This points to the feelings part of ‘to incent’. We motivate by engaging the feelings of the other person. We can incent others
To incent someone can be sourced from coercion all the way to loving encouragement. The carrot on a string held out in front of the donkey is meant to incent the donkey to keep walking. This is a false incentive as the promise is insincere, even though at the end of the journey the carrot may be given. Some people use this kind of incentive with others, or shall I say ‘on others’. I don’t like those
What I believe drives my feeling of incentive. If I believe in helping keep the neighbourhood clean I will pick up a candy wrapper someone dropped on the sidewalk. My incentive is from my belief. If my belief is that people must be taught, severely if necessary, to keep the neighbourhood clean, I may call the police, and track down the one who dropped the wrapper seeking retribution
“Why did I do that?” Sometimes that crosses my mind and some of those times strongly so. The question is seeking what it was that incented me, the reason behind the action, the belief that I have not let go of. What incents a bully, a philanthropist, a teacher, a lover? When we understand our deepest incentives we can be more gentle with ourselves and with others. What is it that incents you?