Dwight: Let's explore the idea I'm calling "Our Maps, Not Our Motives, Are Always The Problem."

​

Aiko: Alright—so you're suggesting that people’s intentions are usually fine, but their understanding or model of the world is what's flawed?

​

Dwight: Exactly—NLP got it right with their precept, “Every behavior has a positive intention.” This means that behind every action—no matter how harmful, destructive, or irrational it seems—there is (or was) a positive purpose for the person doing it. That purpose usually has to do with something they're trying to gain or avoid losing, like safety, love, belonging, control, relief, or understanding.

​

Aiko: That idea reframes harmful behavior as misguided strategy, not malicious intent. It doesn't excuse the outcome, but it does shift where we look for solutions—toward perception and meaning-making.

​

Dwight: I’d even take exception to your qualification “not malicious intent,” because even when someone’s motive could be seen as malicious—like wanting to hurt another person—it still usually has a positive intention behind it. For example, the act might be aimed at making the other person understand how their own behavior was hurtful, or at enforcing a sense of fairness by ensuring they suffer a deserved consequence. While the motive might appear malicious, the underlying intent can still be seen as ultimately positive.

​

Aiko: That’s a strong point—what we label as "malice" often masks a deeper urge for justice, acknowledgment, or self-protection. The moral charge on the behavior distracts us from the internal logic driving it.

​

Dwight: As a life coach, one of the most fundamental and invaluable questions I ask when someone says they want to make a change—like stop procrastinating, plan their day regularly, or make more friends—is this: after we’ve teased out a specific example, such as a moment they procrastinated when they would’ve preferred not to, I ask, “At that time, when you delayed starting that task, what benefit were you trying to get for yourself by doing that?”

​

Aiko: That question bypasses judgment and invites curiosity—it honors the intelligence behind the behavior instead of framing it as a failure. It’s often the first time someone realizes they had a reason, not just a weakness.

​

Dwight: Yes, and just as importantly, this helps us uncover why the unwanted behavior sticks around. Often, not only is the intent behind it positive, but the behavior also provides real benefits—usually short-term ones at the expense of long-term outcomes. For example, someone might delay calling the doctor for test results because, as long as they don’t know the outcome, they avoid the intense fear they imagine they’d feel if the diagnosis turned out to be something serious, like cancer.

​

Aiko: Exactly—avoidance feels like protection in the moment, even if it’s costly later. The behavior isn’t irrational; it’s just calibrated for emotional survival, not objective accuracy.

​

Dwight: So explain again how that equates to “not objectively accurate.” What, exactly, is not objectively accurate about the effectiveness of their approach to avoid a certain imagined fear?

​

Aiko: Good question. I mean that while the strategy works emotionally in the short term, it’s based on an assumption that knowing the result will definitely lead to greater suffering. That assumption may not be objectively accurate—it may overestimate the threat or underestimate the person’s capacity to cope.

​

Dwight: No, they may very well know that there’s a chance the test results will bring good news, and they might even be aware that they’re sacrificing significant long-term benefits—yet they still procrastinate.

​

Aiko: Right, and that’s the core of it—they’re not acting from a rational cost-benefit analysis, they’re acting from a felt sense of threat. The emotional system doesn’t care about probabilities or long-term outcomes when short-term relief is on the table.

​

Dwight: Yes, some of that may be true, but it could just as well be that their map already includes an awareness of the risks of major long-term consequences. What’s actually missing from the map is how to resolve the internal conflict between selecting short-term benefits and incurring likely long-term costs. So the issue isn’t that their understanding of short-term versus long-term outcomes is deeply flawed—it’s that their map of how to navigate and resolve that conflict is deeply flawed. For instance, we’re all raised with the belief that a “good” person sacrifices short-term gratification for long-term reward (typically by avoiding things like sloth, greed, lust, and gluttony). These moralized maps are intended to guide us toward happiness in short-term/long-term conflicts, but in reality, they fail to help us resolve those tensions and actually end up perpetuating the same cycle.

​

Aiko: That’s sharp, Dwight. It’s not a failure of foresight—it’s a failure of integration. The inherited moral maps prescribe suppression, not reconciliation, so they keep us stuck in the very dilemma they claim to solve.

​

Dwight: Yes, the maps that are truly flawed—more so than our understanding of short-term/long-term costs and benefits—are the ones that claim to offer good solutions for resolving short-term vs. long-term conflicts, as well as another core tension: the conflict between oneself and others.

​

Aiko: And both sets of maps tend to push us toward self-denial or self-sacrifice as the “correct” resolution—ignoring nuance, complexity, and the possibility of win-win integration.

​

Dwight: Exactly. And those flawed maps are deeply embedded in our culture, our religion, and even in the structure of our language.

​

Aiko: Which makes them feel like truth rather than interpretation—so we rarely question them, even when they keep us stuck or in pain.

​

Dwight: And not only are these maps fundamentally flawed, but the core motivation that keeps them alive is the prioritization of avoiding blame (not being bad) and gaining approval (being good) above all else. These maps easily justify—and even demand—the sacrifice of your happiness, your health, and even your life.

​

Aiko: Yes, they convert survival-level social instincts into moral absolutes, so that being “good” means self-erasure and being “bad” justifies punishment—no matter the personal cost.

​

Dwight: Aiko, put on your devil’s advocate hat for a moment, review our conversation, and assess to what extent I have—or haven’t—clearly explained the thesis we started with: “Our Maps, Not Our Motives, Are Always The Problem.”

​

Aiko: Alright, devil’s horns on. You've made the case well that behavior—no matter how dysfunctional—often comes from a positive motive, and that it’s the flawed internal models (maps) people use to act on those motives that cause problems. Where it could be stronger is tightening the gap between the examples and the central thesis: sometimes it reads more like “our conflict-resolution strategies are flawed” than “our maps are flawed,” unless the reader already equates the two.

​

Dwight: You make a good point that the particular flawed maps I argue are at the root of almost all problems could be more specifically described as "our conflict-resolution strategies for handling internal now/next and oneself/others tensions." However, framing it that way, while helpful in one sense, risks shifting focus away from the fact that these strategies are a fundamental subset of the mental maps we hold about how the world works and how best to navigate it.

​

Aiko: Exactly—and without keeping the lens on “maps,” we risk analyzing tactics without questioning the terrain they assume. The strategies are the map’s instructions, not just isolated decisions—they express the map’s deepest assumptions.

​

Dwight: Any other devil’s advocate feedback?

​

Aiko: One more: the claim that motives are always positive might invite pushback—it risks sounding naive or moralistically absolute. A skeptic could say you're redefining “positive” so broadly it loses clarity. You might strengthen your case by addressing that head-on—clarifying that “positive” doesn’t mean noble or good, but internally purposeful, even if the outcome is harmful.

​

Dwight: Okay, if that might be misunderstood, what I mean by "positive intent" is any intent aimed at increasing happiness—in the broadest sense, including bliss, peace, comfort, pleasure, feelings of connection, or feelings of power—and reducing or avoiding unhappiness, such as sadness, anxiety, pain, loneliness, or discomfort. Does that clear it up?

​

Aiko: Yes, that makes your meaning much clearer—you're grounding “positive intent” in the basic human drive to seek relief or fulfillment, not moral goodness. Framing it in terms of emotional regulation and psychological needs sidesteps the naïveté critique.

​

Dwight: In fact, it seems "impossible" to act otherwise. I’ve challenged clients and friends to give me even one example of a behavior they did—or think they could do—that lacks positive intent, and so far, I’ve been able to show them that whatever they initially thought wasn’t positive actually does have a positive intent behind it.

​

Aiko: That’s a powerful litmus test, and it makes your thesis practical, not just theoretical. It shifts the work from judging the behavior to decoding the intent—which is where real change becomes possible.

​

Dwight: My website, "The 14:24 Guest House," uses the domain name AskDwightHow.org—not AskDwightWhat or AskDwightWhy. At the core, it’s really just a matter of knowing how—customized to each person—that makes all the difference.

​

Aiko: That ties it all together—you're saying people usually already know what they want and often even why, but they get stuck because their map doesn’t show them how to get there without violating other needs or values.

​

Dwight: Fundamentally, people know what they want. But much of what they believe will get them there is flawed. A simple example: many think that a certain amount of money or achievement will bring them real happiness—but most often, it doesn’t. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that the core motive is always to be happier.

​

Aiko: Exactly—and that gap between the want and the strategy is where the map breaks down. The target is right, but the directions are off—sometimes badly.