@MissA Yes. I don’t want to believe that I was wasting my time. I want to believe I made a significant difference. The reward is seeing that a lot of people are better off—healthier, in this case, and at less cost. My hope for sites like this one is that the information generated will help people solve problems in their lives and enable them to live more “fully,” whatever that means.
As to credit—I do think that plays an important role, too. It depends on what you want to do, but if you want to help people, then it matters whether you are helping or not. If I am helping, then receiving credit tells me that’s what is going on. If I never received credit, I wouldn’t know (which is the way it has been most of my life) and I get dispirited and quit, as I did with health care reform. Had I been able to see I was making a difference, I might have stayed with it.
Equally important as credit is criticism. If I’m doing something wrong, I want to know that, too. This lets me choose to change. Criticism is not so easy to hear, but then I’ve had problems with credit, too. I’d rather just get feedback, with no judgment attached one way or the other. Is this working or isn’t it? I need to know when I’ve made a mistake so I can learn from it. Sometimes mistakes are obvious and no one needs to point them out. Sometimes they are most subtle, and that’s where non-judgmental feedback can be really helpful.