[metricman]

Come on, human nature? Designed to keep striving? I've heard this referenced as "keeping up with the Joneses" when it's about matching consumption to your neighbors'.

I never thought "keeping up with the Joneses" is part of my human nature. Or even my culture.

The 'societal overlords' from previous posts you have now ascribed to human nature (??) are really 'society', perhaps influenced by some ultra-elite cadre, sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses

[dalek_cannes]

If anything, Homo Sapiens was designed (read evolved) to be flexible because species that hard-coded their responses to the environment went extinct when the environment changed. So the only thing that could be coded into human behavior was to try to be "better". Better than what was left intentionally blank. At least, that's how I see it.

[light3]

There is a popular TED talk on motivation, he postulates that growth is one contributing component of motivation. This may be his anecdote, but this guy has helped many people get back their motivation. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html