When Everything Is a Reward, Nothing Is Rewarding
For many people in modern society, life has become an endless search for validation. We feel compelled to turn our passions into rewards and our preferences into performance. If something we care about doesn’t come with some external confirmation of its worth, it doesn’t feel worthwhile.
Somewhere along the way, we started believing that everything we love should also pay for itself. It sounds harmless enough. “Do what you love, and the money will follow.” But beneath that promise is a quiet shift in meaning. Joy becomes something to monetize, passion becomes performance, and value is measured in outcomes rather than experiences.
The overjustification effect is a term from psychology that describes what happens when external rewards replace intrinsic motivation. When a child who loves to draw begins receiving prizes for every picture, the act of drawing slowly stops being fun. The reward, initially meant to encourage, ends up hollowing out the joy.
It’s easy to see that pattern in modern life. We have learned to attach social and financial validation to almost everything we do: hobbies, relationships, even rest. Every moment can be tracked, shared, liked, or leveraged. We tell ourselves this is ambition. But it’s really just pressure disguised as purpose. When every act demands validation, meaning begins to fade. The moments spent doing things we love are overshadowed by the pressing need for the next reward. In the process, we lose those moments, we lose our passion, and we suffer for it.
It’s no surprise so many people feel unmotivated or lost. When everything becomes a performance, we start to forget who we were when the curtain wasn’t up. We lose touch with the quiet satisfaction that once came from doing something for no reason other than that it mattered to us. We forget how to find satisfaction and peace from within, and put ourselves at the mercy of public opinion. When every step must be justified, the journey becomes exhausting.
The truth is, not every moment has to “lead somewhere.” Not every interest has to become a brand, a business, or a side hustle. Some things are worth doing precisely because they can’t be measured. They matter because they restore a sense of inner life that doesn’t depend on applause.
The word flow in positive psychology describes a state in which we become completely absorbed in an activity because it provides a transcendent sense of purpose and meaning. It is the very opposite of the external reward loop. Achieving this state provides a sense of self-fulfillment and peace that requires no feedback. It is entirely from within.
Reclaiming that kind of joy takes practice. It’s an act of quiet rebellion to read without sharing a quote, to play music without sharing a playlist, to build something that no one else will see. But in those unrewarded moments, we rediscover what we thought we had lost: the feeling of being present, alive, and at peace with ourselves.
Maybe the real task isn’t to make everything rewarding.
It’s to remember how to be rewarded by simply being.
About the Author
Rod Price has spent his career in human services, supporting mental health and addiction recovery, and teaching courses on human behavior. A lifelong seeker of meaning through music, reflection, and quiet insight, he created Quiet Frontier as a space for thoughtful conversation in a noisy world.