Why Do You Do Good?
On surface, this seems like a rather meaningless and stupid question, don't you think? "What do you mean, Why do I want to do good? Isn't that a rhetorical question?" Actually, it isn't.
I find the notion of Karma( in Buddhism) intriguing. If we do bad things in our current life, we will be degraded to animals, or worse, even insects. So am I supposed to spend my whole life doing good, constantly afraid of becoming a six-legged bloodsucker in my next life? I don't think so. Next, there is what we call boot-licking. Need I explain more? Students who latch on to their teachers, following them around like little puppies, always the first to help the teacher, living by the rule " the teacher is always right", hoping that their obedience will earn them brownie points and hints for exams.
But wait, there's more. Governments who send huge amounts of money to neighboring countries when there is disaster. Are they really such good samatarians or are they trying to build up relations when others are in need? We will never know. However, I would like to pin point something that illustrates my point here. when disaster struck Haiti, our government donate sucha meagre amount compared to other countries that Mr Brown, a famous Singaporean blogger, commended the Straits Times for finding a line small enough to compare with other countries' donations. Some may say that our country is small and therefore we don't donate as much compared to USA and whatnot, but one wonders where our "gahmen" got the money to help the tsunami victims in Malaysia and earthquake victims in China.
All in all, I would like to conclude my post by saying this : "Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind". I hope everybody will live by that... but then again, we will not always get what we wish for
posted by Xavier the Confused at 3:24 PM
2 Comments:
I disagree strongly with whatever you've just said. It is pretty much a rhetorical question. Certainly not everyone thinks like that. A fair few do, but not a lot. Kindness, true kindness that is, should never bear an ulterior motive. It should only aim to help others who are less fortunate because you are affected (in a negative way) by what you see or know. It is a desire to serve others in need for their good. We should not think about the 'greater good'. Unfortunately, some people have fallen ill of ways and must resort to such cowardly measures. Of course, if ou do good with no ulterior motive but still receive gratitude and favour (as you should), then that is all right, obviously. To sum things up, we should serve but not expect to receive.
By the way, I think your Blog post should have been titled "the ulterior motive". Just so you know =P
Dylan... obviously my sentences were not structured properly, or you weren't reading carefully. I was chiding those who do kind or good things for an ulterior motive, not saying that we should always have an ulterior motive in mind when we help people. Also, the point of my blog title is to let readers ask themselves: this is such a simple question, but are they really helping people out of the kindness of their heart? however, i understand that different people have different opinion on such things and i would like to thank you for your comments and suggestions anyway:)
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