Read the passage and answer the questions.
The Grime by ReadWorks
Octavia normally would have been embarrassed to rattle off her accomplishments to a total stranger. She’d had to do this enough times, in job interviews usually, so she was used to the squirming discomfort that comes with saying: I graduated with these honors at this university with this GPA and did this and that and, yes, what a rewarding experience, I learned so much, and on and on.
She had done this enough times to know that her discomfort came from the fact that she sort of liked to boast. She knew she shouldn't like it! So she was stuck in the middle. Or, rather, not in the middle, but slapped back and forth, from smug satisfaction to self-disgust and back again, like a tennis ball over a net.
Here, though, it was completely different. Sitting in a stuffy, windowless office across from a man without a tie. Octavia wearing casual clothes herself. The atmosphere relaxed. Nothing at stake. She had come to help people. The rest didn't matter.
The man across from her was in his fifties, probably. He had a bristly graying mustache and the air of a man resigned to good humor, as though he had given every style a fair try, and settled finally on shrugging shoulders and a half smile.
Octavia could tell he was impressed with her. Why shouldn't he be? Because, let's face it, she was perfectly qualified. Great school, great grades, great experience, young, energetic, up on the latest methods. In two words, a catch.
The man across from her leaned back in his chair, resting one arm on the chair's armrest, and his chin in his palm. His knuckles were buried in his mustache. He had a daily calendar on his desk, the “funny” kind. Every day was matched with a joke. Octavia imagined that ripping off the next sheet in the morning to find a new joke might be the bright spot of someone’s morning.
Octavia got her biggest kicks not from talking about her schooling or her grades, but from talking about why she wanted to volunteer to teach illiterate adults to read. She explained to Paul—that was the mustached program director's name—how she had never volunteered before, how she wasn't even the type to volunteer, how if you had asked her just two months ago whether she would ever commit twenty hours a week just to pre-volunteer training, she would have bet her bottom dollar: nope.
“So,” he asked her, “what changed?”
“That's the thing!” Octavia's eyes lit up. She was leaning over Paul's desk now, bursting with enthusiasm. She felt alive. “It just…popped up. I mean, I don't know, I was just clicking around Wikipedia the other day, like I do practically every day, and I was on, like, Belgium, and then horse-hair paintbrushes, and then experimental stringed instruments, and then, somehow, adult illiteracy. And I started reading, and it was just—I don't know, out of nowhere I wanted to be a part of this, to volunteer, to help and see for myself. I don't think I'm a tourist, you know? I'm not here to experience the grime and then go home and tell my friends about it over sushi. It's not like that. I just…think I can help, and feel compelled to.”
Everything Octavia said was true. But in bed that night, her words ran in a loop in her mind, over and again.
Octavia's worst qualities were at war with her best. On the one side were pride and arrogance. On the other were enthusiasm and passion. She wondered: was she attempting to volunteer just for the show of it, or did she truly care about making a difference? Would she try to learn, as well as teach?
Octavia didn’t know. It was too difficult to separate one motivation from the next. They were tangled up with each other, and she wasn’t sure where one ended and the other began. She lay in bed and struggled with what had gone on in the office. She replayed the words she’d spoken, as if someone else had said them. She thought not “Is this who I am?” but “Is this how I want to be?”
What Octavia came to understand was that her identity was complex: her character wasn’t simple, wasn’t driven by any one thing. She was made up of parts. Some of those parts wanted to learn. Some parts wanted to teach. Some were arrogant, and some were humble.
She realized that the one thing she could be certain of was this: no matter her intentions, the end result would be the same. She would help adults learn to read, and wasn’t that most important? The consequence? She had just begun to wonder if a selfish intention had the power to taint a worthwhile outcome when sleep came.
Octavia experiences an internal conflict between pride and arrogance on one side, and enthusiasm and passion on the other. She navigates through this conflict by reflecting on her motivations. How does reflecting on our motivations and why we want to do things help us understand ourselves and make better choices? Use personal experiences and evidence from the text to support your discussion. This should be 2 paragraphs of 5-7 sentences each
Reflecting on our motivations and why we want to do things helps us understand ourselves better because it allows us to examine our true intentions behind our actions. By taking the time to consider why we are doing something, we can uncover our underlying feelings and beliefs that may be driving our behavior. This self-reflection can help us make better choices by guiding us towards actions that align with our values and goals. Personal experiences, such as reflecting on past decisions and the outcomes of those decisions, can also provide valuable insight into our motivations and help us navigate through internal conflicts.
In the text, Octavia's reflection on her motivations for volunteering to teach illiterate adults to read helps her uncover her true intentions and understand the complexities of her identity. By questioning whether she was volunteering just for the show of it or if she truly cared about making a difference, Octavia is forced to confront her conflicting qualities of pride and arrogance versus enthusiasm and passion. This self-awareness ultimately leads her to the realization that, regardless of her motivations, the end result of helping others learn to read is what truly matters. Similarly, reflecting on our own motivations can lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves and guide us towards making choices that align with our values and goals.