I read something recently that made me think and ponder. It was in one of those little book of affirmation type books, a rather nifty one that I'm browsing through at the moment. It was about doing good to others and suggested that so many of us do things, favours and good deeds but we then tell people, or someone about it.
I've been guilty of that in the past for sure. I've done a pretty good favour to someone but then told a few people about it. I honestly don't think that I've ever done a good deed purely to tell others afterwards but I know that I've quite liked to spread the word.
The theory is that, by telling others, we dilute or share out the very goodness that we feel ourselves after doing something nice. It's only by keeping totally quiet about things that we retain all the positive and good feelings within ourselves. Simple to understand, simple to explain, but bloody hard to do.
What do you think?
Sri Lanka’s Ingenuity paradox
2 weeks ago
3 comments:
I do good stuff but rarely tell others about it. Must maintain my image of a heartless ice queen y'know :)
"The theory is that, by telling others, we dilute or share out the very goodness that we feel ourselves after doing something nice."
To go one step further in getting out of that ego trip would be to not even feel that "goodness" feeling that may arise after doing the "good deed" - let alone telling others about it.
Java - that raises a highly interesting point about whether we can control our own feelings. I think I might write a whole separate post on it.
Darwin - I know about the image of a heartless ice queen but underneath it all we know that you're really a ....heartless ice queen
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