Episode 05 – Do Good – Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome to Twisted Thinking, the podcast that helps you keep your thoughts flexible. My name is Kristin and today we are talking about a motivational saying behind a popular idea in the world.
The specific quote that I’m using is from Aman Mehndiratta and I apologize for the pronunciation, but there are others out there who have said similar things.
The saying is “Do good and good will come to you.”
The idea is nice. It’s comforting, right?
It’s reminiscent of the Santa Claus story when we were kids, or the idea of heaven in Christianity, or even Karma in Buddhism.
To generalize, these things are all based on the idea that good deeds will get you good things, and bad deeds will bring you bad things.
If I’m being honest here, it’s a little bribe-like almost like when you were little, and your parents would tell you to eat your veggies so you could get dessert.
I suspect that worked for most of us when we were young, but does the bribe of good for good hold up in real life?
Does life really work like that?
Well, without getting philosophical, no. No, it doesn’t.
Life does not play by the “if this then that” technical parameters that a computer does or, the idea of tip for tat on the playground.
Life isn’t fair, and the statement implies that it is, and it’s a fallacy, and I believe that if we take it at face value, if we really invest ourselves in it, it can be detrimental to our mental and emotional health.
I can hear someone saying it now, they’re saying, “But Kristin, it’s true! I did a good thing and this other good thing happened to me.”
So, let me address that. I am not saying that good doesn’t get good coming back your way, but I am saying that it doesn’t always happen, which is exactly what this statement and others like it imply.
When good doesn’t come back to us, we often feel cheated, lied to. We’re left disappointed. Our expectations were not met, and these things can cause feelings of anger, betrayal, frustration, and loss of trust.
And that’s the problem with this mindset, it’s setting an unrealistic expectation for us.
The expectation of when we do good, we will get good back, and this is bound to cause problems because there’s only a few outcomes and of those outcomes, only one is really desirable.
When we do a good thing, we get a good thing in return, and when that happens it’s great.
The idea that good is rewarded and that it’s worth doing is reinforced, and so we tend to do it again because we get a little bit of a high.
You know that dopamine hit, and we want to keep the feeling going… sort of like positive reinforcement training with animals.
But then there are times when our good deed is met with apathy, or even worse, something very bad.
For example, schoolteachers losing their lives, protecting their students from gunmen, or men who give all of their time and money to charity slowly dying of cancer, or altar boys being molested by their religious leaders.
These types of situations are when this proverb becomes downright dangerous. The anger and grief we feel when these kinds of things happen are bad enough. When you add the feelings of being disappointed in life for not meeting your unrealistic expectations on top of those feelings it can become overwhelming and then everything can spill over. And those things can become fuel for revenge and hate and violence.
It just feeds into the chaos and good things rarely come from chaos.
I remember when I was 14, I was old enough to start volunteering at the local Humane Society.
I did it out of the pure love that I had for the critters I wanted to learn about them and take care of them and be surrounded by them all the time. Aside from writing, animals were my first passion.
One day the volunteers were told that there was going to be a delivery through the back and we weren’t to bring any visitors there, nor were we supposed to go back ourselves.
I didn’t question it because it wasn’t really out of the ordinary. Plus I was 14, I wasn’t thinking too deeply.
Anyway, a visitor came in and they were interested in a cat, I think. I can’t remember now exactly, but whatever it was, there was only one specific person that could help. And of course, that one specific person was in the back.
Me – only thinking about doing what needed to be done to get this cat a home – immediately went to go to get the person.
As soon as I opened the door to the back, I was struck by the sight of dozens of dead greyhounds.
They covered every inch of the floor.
And there was more waiting, in the back.
We had a dog racetrack not too far from us, and these were all dogs that had outlived their usefulness, so they were being disposed of.
I was absolutely horrified.
My expectations of good things happening because I was doing good things was absolutely crushed and I was disappointed to say the least.
The disappointment really almost overwhelmed the horror that I felt.
Not only at the death, but at the waste of time that each dog represented. It was so graphic and so traumatic that it truly made me question things that had been obvious to me before that moment.
I found myself asking what’s the point?
What was the point of taking care of these animals when most of them were going to end up just like those poor racers?
Why should I put my time and effort into making sure, you know, the old dogs get up and move around in the mornings or that the little kitten that is in quarantine eats his breakfast and drinks enough water?
It was a waste of time. It didn’t matter because they were all going to end up dead soon anyway, and most of them were going to end up dead whether I helped them or not because they wouldn’t find a home.
So why even bother?
I know that sounds terrible, but remember I was 14 and I was really just learning and forming my opinions about the world.
But I did eventually come to realize that for myself, the point was seeing other beings made comfortable or satisfied, or pleased, or lifted up in some way by something I had done.
And later on in life I came to the conclusion that this was really the only acceptable way for me to serve my God.
I know a lot of us are at this point right now because of the things happening in the world – you know this, why bother? what’s the point – point?
I understand the question though, the why bother question, it’s it’s something that’s going to plague humanity until the end of days, and unfortunately, I don’t have any real answers to it. I can only give my opinions and my ideas and to that end I offer an alternative school of thought.
One that might help us manage our expectations so that when good is not met with good, we can still find the strength to do good anyway. It’s just an edit if you will of the previous quote.
And with that edit, the statement now reads:
Do good and expect nothing.
That’s it, that’s all.
Don’t be bribed into doing a good thing because you’re going to get something back. Lend things with mentality that they’re not going to be returned. Help a little old lady across the street because you’re there and she needs it. Take in the stray and give them a good meal and a place to sleep, even if it’s only for one night. And yes, I mean people and animals.
Do it for the sake of doing it and then move on. Expect nothing. As unfair as life is it is also unpredictable, and it owes us nothing. It doesn’t care if we do good or not. It doesn’t follow a logical path, and mottos like this that lead us to believe it does can cause mental and emotional stress where we just don’t need it.
Our choices in life matter and every choice we make will have an impact, but there is still an element of the unknown and to be able to face those elements we need to be able to focus all of our available energy on dealing with them.
It’s tough to do that if we’re also dealing with this fruitless disappointment that causes confusion and uncertainty where there just doesn’t need to be.
What do you think? Do you think I am being too harsh when I say this idea is nothing but a big bribe?
Or do you think that I have the right idea?
Let me know. That’s all for today.
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Thank you so much for listening until next time be blessed and stay twisted.