Thoughts: Why Do People Keep Doing Bad Things even though They Know It is Bad?

I was scrolling through Pinterest feeds a few days ago and I found an interesting question "why do people do bad things even though they know it is bad". This question is kind of a tricky ones, so I started wondering why and decided to ask a few friends (remains anonymous) about the question. I have summed up my friends' and my answers to this writing. 

Before I start displaying our answers and the elaboration, I want to show some relation between this question and something that I've just learn from the class that I've joined before, Introduction to Law (Pengantar Ilmu Hukum). It is "das sollen and das sein".

What is das sollen and das sein?

In short, das sollen is a concrete law, a positive law that is applied to a society.  Whilst, das sein is the concrete event(s) that occur in a society.

Law prohibits anything which brings bad impact to our society, but there is das sein which means whatever the law is there must be event(s) in our society that violates the law. The violation is inevitable, it's always there, no matter what, that's the fact. That's a nature. 

This is answering the main question that I've mentioned above by the perspective of law.

There are 5 points that I've found might answer our previous question.

    The first point is curiosity, people especially teenager who are in the growing phase where they want to know about everything mostly are driven by their own curiosity to the bad things. They know it is bad, but they are curious about it and end up doing the bad things. For instance, doing drugs, I bet everyone knows that it is bad and dangerous, it could cause bad impacts to our health. Guess what? They're still so many teenagers who are using drugs, the cycle is curiosity leads them to use it and once they know the feel of high they become addicted and can't stop using it.

    The next point is when there is no proper guidance, we all need guidance in living this life, whether it is your religious guidance or your family's (especially parents) guidance. People who didn't get the decent guidance to live in a society will be more possible to do the bad things. How could someone know about what they should and shouldn't actually do if there is no proper guidance for them to follow.

    The third point is bad influence, mostly in peer group. Peer group has a big role in defining who you are, if your peer group is a group full of high schoolers who love to go to the library for studying then you will be one, vice versa. In every peer group there is peer pressure, the pressure you have to face and fulfill, if the pressure brings bad impacts to you then it will lead you to bad things and so on.

   One of the friend I asked mention this one point, the sadness affect. At first, I didn't get the correlation until I rethink. It's all about mental pleasure, and it turns out sometimes when you are sad you need a release to let you go from your sad feeling. For example using drugs (again), the high can make you forget your sadness, your pain, your problem, etc.

   Last but not least is necessity. Not all bad things are caused by necessity but mostly are. The other friend of mine, suggest losing hope as one of the reason for the question and I found some correlation between losing hope and necessity. Suppose yourself sitting in a room doing your final exam, you have to pass the exam so your abusive parents won't hit you, you studied so hard last night but it turns out you studied the different material for the exam and it makes you desperate. You start losing hope for passing the exam, nothing you can do but, then one of your smart classmate who sits beside you, go to the toilet and leave his/her answer sheets wide open, you can see the answers clearly so you decide to cheat. Having a necessity and not being able to afford it could lead you to a desperate situation and losing hope, when there is a chance to afford it in a bad way, some people will choose it.

    Doing bad things is bad but sometimes we forget that there must be a reason for someone to do it. Nevertheless it still cannot justified the bad things someone do. Learn and know how to control yourself is on of the many ways to keep yourself away from doing bad things.

What do you think about it? Comment your opinion below or you can send me message to the attached email address 😉