Selfless Deed?

Do you remember those lines which Joey said in one of the episodes of Friends — No selfless deed ever exists in this world. Phoebe tries to contradict Joey but finally agrees to it. Maybe Joey is right, maybe there isn’t any truly selfless deeds in the world, but is it necessary to believe in that?

I was once part of this thought process that everything that is done in this world is for a monetary benefit, for selfish intent and then someone inspired me to think otherwise.

I understand accepting a fact and believing maybe two entirely different thing. But believing something to be true makes it hard to work on it. For Example, I once was a fellow under a CSR project where we were being told about the workings of an NGO. Born and brought up in a middle class family had always made me think that wealth was only meant to be accumulated and saved as much as possible. The concept of giving up a part of your life and wealth to the underprivileged was an alien concept to me.

Above the idea of what drives someone to do something like that, I was curious of the fact that is it even fruitful? And I wasn’t the only one who was thinking like that among the many fellows. The question that do NGOs really work for the betterment was a burning question before I started to work for one.

The perception that changed after working for the NGO is a different story altogether but more important is what ended my curiosity. One of our lecturers who was a CEO at some NGO spoke some words which were actually true. He said, “ If you can’t believe that the people working in the social sector are really working for the people, then even you won’t ever be able to work for them. If you are in this field, then you have to believe that people on this do really care about people and that your contributions would go into the right directions.”

Maybe he was right, maybe above questioning the morality of a cause, it is important to really believe in the cause. Above the deceit, the corruption and wrong, it is important to believe we can be selfless. If we can be then the world can be.