End-gaining and gardening

End-gaining is action with a view or link to an outcome. It is a composite of the word ‘end’, meaning outcome or intention, and ‘gain’, meaning achieve, accrue or win. It means that a person’s actions are in line with a habitual outcome or a desired gain. End-gaining can be motivated by greed, ideology, biology, or habit.

Biologically, humans are natural end-gainers. We go to the kitchen in search of food. We date with the wish to develop a relationship. We get a job with the aim of having enough money to eat and live. It does not have to be consciously intentional. It can simply be an inbred or acquired habit. If we go along a path enough times, it becomes a journey with an outcome.

Humans have invented games to crystallize end-gaining into an intensely watchable phenomenon. The Olympic 100-metres final. A football match. Planned events with a clear, enforced system of rules, rewards and penalties. Get to the finish line in the fastest time. Score the most goals.

Where two systems conflict, there will be interference. Imagine a 100-metre sprint being organized in the middle of a football match. Chaos. Both end-gaining systems fail because they interfere with each other. A person desperate to have children marries someone who hates children. Result: a messy situation, where one person’s heaven is another person’s hell.

As a therapist, I have the privilege of witnessing how people experience themselves, and other people, in terms of end-gaining. Depression is the loss of involvement in end-gaining. We have lost, and that is it. The only way to recover is to reestablish some relationship with an outcome system, a path that can become a new journey. Anxiety is chronic interference. We feel exactly as though someone has organized a 100-metre sprint in the middle of our football match, and we become overstimulated trying to navigate the chaos.

Healing can be achieved in three ways: by introducing an end-gaining system (as in recovery from depression); by removing an end-gaining system (as in recovery from anxiety); or by seeking balance, treating end-gaining systems as a gardener treats plant systems, trying them out in different permutations until a viable ecosystem is developed.

Thus, one client might find recovery from their depression by reawakening a buried enthusiasm and finding a new job in that field. Another client might find recovery from social anxiety by learning not to people-please (thereby removing the 100-metre sprint from their football field!). Yet another client, suffering from anger and frustration, might find a way of balancing family duties with self-empowerment, by renegotiating potentially overwhelming responsibilities like a gardener designing a better garden.

In our self-development, we do well to reflect on our life as a set of interacting, end-gaining systems. If we are feeling depressed, it may be that our life works for those around us, but for us there is no sense of reward left. If we are feeling anxious, it may be that we have a potentially great football match going on, but somehow have a 100-metre sprint going on in the middle of it. If our life feels messy and uncontrollable, it may be that it needs tending like a garden, to achieve better harmony between competing systems.