What if your 'why' is 'because'?
... inspired because of Love!
The final exam in my father's college psychology course consisted of a single question: "Why?"
After filling up every page in his ‘answer booklet’ with detailed explanations, theories, and psychological frameworks only to fail the test, he went to the professor wanting to know ‘why’ and discovered that the correct answer was just one word: "Because."
It seemed like this story lingered in my mind for years until I finally wrapped my head around what seemed like the point to the professor’s lesson. He wasn't testing knowledge—he was hoping to help his students understand the difference between motivation and inspiration. He was revealing the freedom that comes when you stop needing to justify your actions and actually recognize what beckons you …. because.
Reaching this perspective took decades of me explaining myself to exhaustion before accepting the deeper meaning of "because" and why it represents the ultimate freedom from the transactional way most of us have learned to live.
The Training Ground of Transaction
Like many young children, I adopted the idea that love was something you earned through performance. When I got good grades—which was the only thing my parents would accept—life was good, and I felt loved. When I was sick, my mom became more attentive, and I felt loved. When I did my chores, I received an allowance for doing good which meant I was loved.
This isn't to say my parents were awful or bad parents. Not at all. They did what they knew to do. They repeated the parenting patterns they were familiar with, the same survival training they had received. This is classic conditioning that many of us experience: we learn that love is contingent, that care costs, and our worth is tied to something we do.
While learning to survive in this world, what gets lost in the interpretations is the fact that there's an additional way to live: not from the need to feel sheltered by love, but from the desire to express it.
The missing piece in my childhood—and in many childhoods—was the guidance that love is neither earned nor a strategy. It simply expresses spontaneously.
The Fuel of Our Generosity
This realization hit me when I started examining what actually fuels my desire to be generous, to work, to contribute. I discovered something uncomfortable: I was rooted in the transactional patterns I learned as a child.
I feel loved when people appreciate and acknowledge my work. Receiving money represents receiving love—validation that what I offer has value, that I matter, that I'm worthy of care. The harder I work, the more I can potentially receive.
But this became an exhausting cycle: I was giving just to receive. I worked in order to feel worthy. I was contributing in order to earn my place in the world. Everything was being filtered through my ego to make sure I was provided for, when it could have simply flowed from love.
What moves us to want money? What drives our need to feel generous? For most, if we're honest, it's the unconscious hope that our doing will generate the input we crave: love, appreciation, acknowledgment, worthiness. In other words: transactional living offers shelter from the beliefs that suggest we must do in order to experience love.
We work SO THAT we'll be valued. We give SO THAT we'll be appreciated. We achieve SO THAT we'll be loved. We perform SO THAT we'll belong.
Survival of the fittest!
But what if there was another way? What if we could work, give, achieve, and perform simply... because?
My guess is we already do however, we’ve been asked to justify and explain ourselves so many times that we automatically justify our ‘whys’ to ourselves!
Why do you want a bigger house? Why do you want to take that trip? Why do you need that promotion? The questions are endless. And because we know how this goes, we unconsciously prepare to justify our actions by becoming our own inquisitor … first.
Get this: while knowing your ‘why’ motivates you, imagine the freedom felt when you go all in … because! No explanations weighing on your mind.
The Psychology Professor's Wisdom
That psychology professor understood something profound about human motivation. When we can answer "why" with "because"—no elaborate explanation needed—we've moved beyond the realm of transactional living and into the freedom to be.
"Because" represents action that springs from essence rather than strategy. It's the difference between being moved by love and chasing love. It's the distinction between acting from fullness and acting from emptiness.
When you do something "because," you're not trying to get anything in return. You're not calculating the payoff or managing the outcome. You're simply responding to an inner impulse that doesn't need justification or explanation.
This is what it looks like to be moved BY love rather than moved TO RECEIVE love.
The Anatomy of Transactional Living
Most of us learned to live transactionally without realizing it. Every action becomes a bid for love, acceptance, or worthiness. We develop an internal accounting system: if I do this, then I should receive that. If I give this much, then I deserve this much in return.
This shows up everywhere:
Working extra hours so others will see how dedicated we are
Being helpful so people will appreciate us
Giving gifts so recipients will feel obligated to love us
Achieving so we can prove our worth
Being perfect so no one can reject us
Staying busy so we feel valuable
The exhaustion that comes from this way of living isn't just physical—it's existential. When everything you do is a transaction, when every action is aimed at earning something you feel you lack, life becomes an endless series of negotiations with a universe that seems to withhold what you most need.
But the universe isn't withholding anything. We're just approaching it like a vending machine instead of recognizing it as an ocean of abundance that we're already swimming in.
When Money Becomes Love
One of the most revealing places to examine transactional living is our relationship with money. For many of us, money got tangled up with love so early that we can't separate the two.
Receiving money feels like receiving love because that's how we first learned the equation: productivity equals allowance equals approval equals love. Working hard equals financial reward equals parental pride equals worthiness.
This is why money can feel so emotionally charged. It's not just currency—it's a symbol of whether we're loved, valued, and worthy of care. Making money becomes proof of our lovability. Not making money becomes evidence of our inadequacy.
But what if we could work simply because we're inspired to give through actions defined as work? What if we could earn simply because we're offering ourselves, without needing to validate our worth? What if money could represent spontaneity and freedom rather than a measurement of love?
The Freedom of Because
Teaching ourselves—and our children—to do things "because" is perhaps the most liberating gift we can offer. It's freedom from the survival-based conditioning that makes everything a transaction and turns life into a constant audition for love.
"Because" means:
I work because I'm moved to contribute, not because I need to prove my worth
I give because generosity flows naturally from me, not because I'm trying to earn appreciation
I create because expression is who I am, not because I need validation
I love because love is what I am, not because I'm trying to get love back
I care because caring feels natural, not because caring will make me valuable
This doesn't mean we become irresponsible or stop caring about outcomes. It means we act from inspiration rather than desperation, from fullness rather than emptiness, from love rather than the need for love.
Breaking the Survival Habit
We absolutely must know how to survive—how to function in the world, meet our responsibilities, and take care of ourselves and others. Survival skills are essential. But survival is not meant to be our default mode—our go-to habit for navigating life.
The challenge happens when survival is the mode hang out in because it’s familiar, forgetting that at any time we can choose to live from abundance, creativity, joy, and love. When every action becomes a survival strategy, we lose touch with the part of us that acts simply because we're inspired to act.
Breaking the survival habit means recognizing when we're operating from transaction versus when we're operating from inspiration. It means catching ourselves being moved by "I'll do this to get … " and asking: "What if I just do this—no strings attached?" And then remaining aware of any discomfort we feel when there is no reciprocity.
If so, take a slow deep breath in and gently, release it with an even slower exhale….
The Ripple Effect of Because
When you start living from "because"—when you allow yourself to be inspired by love rather than driven by the need for it—something remarkable happens. You become magnetic in a completely different way.
People can sense the difference between someone who's giving to get and someone who's purely giving because. They can feel the tension between someone who's working to prove their worth and someone who's working because they're inspired to contribute.
When you stop chasing love and are now moved by it, you naturally attract the very things you were chasing. But now you receive them as gifts rather than as proof of your worth.
This ripples out in ways you can't imagine:
Your children learn that they're loved for who they are, not what they do
Your friends experience unconditional care rather than transactional relationship
Your work becomes an expression of your essence rather than a bid for approval
Your generosity flows freely rather than with strings attached
Your creativity emerges naturally rather than from the need to impress
Life becomes …. easy!
The Courage to Need No Reason
Living from "because" requires a particular kind of courage: the courage to be detached from your actions other than the fact that you're doing something … because. It means trusting that your impulses are valid without needing to be justified.
This can feel terrifying for those of us who learned that everything must have an explanation, that love must be earned, that our impulses can't be trusted. But learning to act from "because" is how we break free from the prison of transactional living.
It's how we stop being driven by the need for love and start being moved by love itself.
The Practice of Because
Learning to live from "because" is a practice. It means catching yourself in moments of transactional thinking and asking: "What would it look like to do this simply because?"
It means:
Giving without calculating what you'll get back
Working from inspiration rather than obligation
Creating from joy rather than the need for approval
Loving without keeping score
Contributing because contribution feels natural
It means trusting that when you act from love rather than the need for love, everything you actually need will flow to you naturally.
The End of Earning
The liberation of "because" is the end of earning love and the beginning of being IN love. It's the recognition that you were never actually lacking what you thought you needed to earn. You were only lacking the awareness that love shines the light on what you are here to be, not what you do to ‘get’.
When you understand this—really understand it—you stop trying to experience love through your actions and start allowing love to guide your actions. You stop performing for approval and start expressing from being.
This is what that psychology professor knew: the deepest truth about human motivation can't be explained with elaborate theories or complex reasoning. Sometimes the most profound answer is the simplest one: because.
Because you are moved to. Because it feels good and right. Because love leads. Because ….
The Ultimate Because
The ultimate "because" is the recognition that you exist simply because Love created you to be an expression of Love. Not because you earned the right to exist, not because you proved your worth, but because Love brought you to life.
When you really get this—when you understand that your Presence is love's gift to the world—everything changes. You stop trying to justify your existence and start celebrating it. You stop trying to earn your place and start claiming it. You stop chasing love and start living as the presence of love.
And from that place, everything you do becomes an expression of "because." Because you're moved by love. Because love is what you are. Because … there's no other reason needed.
This is the liberation that psychology professor was pointing toward: the freedom to live, work, give, and love simply because you're inspired to do so, without needing any other justification for your beautiful, essential existence.
In a world obsessed with reasons, "because" becomes the most radical answer of all.
When you stop needing reasons for your love, generosity, and contribution, you discover that love itself is the only reason you ever needed. "Because" isn't the absence of motivation—it's the presence of pure inspiration, moving through you as naturally as your breath.
This is a very special conversation! When you’re ready to lean into living IN love, click here to pick a time on my calendar and book a call with me.