Are We Really “Good” People or Is It An Act?
The ever-benevolent Sunday had once again dawned upon my otherwise monotonous life and I was wrapped in my blanket savouring every bit of its glory.
As with all good things in life, those moments of bliss soon came to a halt when the doorbell rang. I froze and prayed for it to be an auditory hallucination or a nightmare. But the devil’s call did not cease. I groggily climbed out of my bed and stumbled towards the front door to find a man holding a cluster of files and a name tag tucked into his side pocket. I took him for a sales representative, that was, until he thrust a brochure into my hand. I took a glance; it was of a charity organization.
“We collect food and clothes for the children of orphanages” he smiled politely.
I knew what was expected of me, but my sleep-deprived brain was quick to come up with a million excuses. I was not mentally prepared to dive into my disarrayed wardrobe and shuffle through the pile of clothes until I could come up with a piece of clothing, I was willing to part with. Moreover, it would be rude to send him away with just one piece of cloth, I told myself.
So I asked him if he could come back the following week. He said he couldn’t and left the place rather disappointed.
I did not think much of it and went back to bed. Lo and behold, 5 minutes
into the incident, my moral conscience jumped out of her sleep-induced coma. I was hit by a wave of extreme guilt. I rushed to my wardrobe, picked out and counted all the clothes I could have given the man, had I thought and acted a bit selflessly. Images of orphan children in deep longing for good clothes to wear for the festive season flashed in my mind.
A crippling feeling of self-hatred crept into my being. Thus, the long-standing debate of whether I was a good person or not resurrected. My mind enumerated various instances from the past where I had acted selflessly. It doused my guilt to a certain extent though not completely.
I was painfully reminded that as an empath my sense of self-worth is deeply linked to being a “good” person, or at the very least, someone who doesn’t hurt others. And I wondered, aren’t most humans like this, at least on the surface? We all want to be considered good, well-meaning individuals who give back to the community any chance we get, right?
But it posed before me an even greater question of whether all acts of charity stem from a rather selfish motive of not being viewed as self-absorbed, or better yet to convince ourselves that we are not selfish. I wondered if charity has always served as a means for us to burn our guilt over spending money on feel-good shopping, eating out and entertainment, while millions live in poverty.
We are so quick to dismiss a celebrity’s philanthropy as a mere publicity stunt. But isn’t our beneficence, too just an act in many ways?
After hours of unnecessary contemplation, I arrived at the hypothesis that even if acts of kindness are simply an effort to tone down our undeniable self-fixation, the good that comes out of it can still change lives.
And I on that hapless Sunday learnt that doorbells need to be turned off during holidays.
