People appreciate not who has done them good; they appreciate who has made them feel good.
It took me some 30+ years to learn this, but you can have this piece of advice for free.
As usual, props to the previous submitters.
All I’ll add, since I don’t believe in an afterlife, is that you construct the world you live in – it’s all just a set of ideas that you have bouncing around in your head that help you interpret reality. If you think people are inherently bad, you’ll organize your life with that in mind, and it’ll be a bleak world – you can’t trust people, things always go wrong, there’s no justice, etc. If you think people are inherently good, you’ll organize your life differently – you’ll extend trust and be rewarded with trust, you’ll be nice to people and they’ll frequently (but perhaps not always) be nice back, you’ll contribute to society and that society will generally welcome you in. Maybe that’s just my way of interpreting “karma”, but without the cosmic forces. Basically, what you put out into the world is a direct extension of your inner world, and it’s just a lot more pleasant to choose to live in a world populated with good people.
I just started my own law office. My previous employer has seen to it that I have a prime location, and several of my competitors are sending cash clients my way. Friends have extended their personal lines of credit should I need financing. I couldn’t see them doing this for me if I had gone over to the dark side. So yes, in simple monetary terms, trying to be good is well worth it.
Personally, being good lets you sleep soundly at night.
It’s tougher these days, since bad behavior is often rewarded or, subsidized at taxpayer expense and good behavior ridiculed and punished. I suspect it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Hear hear, Tater
From Francis Bacon (emphasis mine):
I’m a good person because I want people to be good to me. I hold doors open for people, be they man woman or child. I expect the same. I say “Excuse me” when I need to walk in front of someone. If I need an item that someone in front of me has I will say “Please pass me ___”.
If people do not respond in kind to me I think they are rude , sad people. I doubt that these types will ever realize what kind of boobs they are, and I do not want to exact revenge. However, if they happen to slip on a banana peel and break a limb or two…
Oddly, it seems to be somewhat more common for people to say “Excuse You” when they are in ones way, which leaves one to wonder if they are purposefully being rude, or some derivation of polite. I rather suspect the former rather than the latter.
Bolding mine …
To expand on this point, there is something you must believe in: you must believe in yourself and your power to control the circumstances in your life. I stumbled across these lyrics by Alan Parsons awhile back that say it much better than I can. Pay particularly close attention to the last three lines of the first verse:
It’s no good believing in somebody else
If you can’t believe in yourself
You give them the reason to take all the power and wealth
It’s no good you trying to sit on the fence
And hope that the trouble will pass
'Cause sitting on fences can make you a pain in the ass
Take a moment, and read the rest. Powerful stuff, IMHO.
The reward will probably not be obvious. It will come from an unexpected direction, at an unexpected time. It will be disguised as something very simple which will have such a special meaning that only you will have the power to understand its significance.
And when it hits you, you will probably find yourself saying something like: “Oh. So that’s what is was all for. Cool.”
Let your heart be your guide.
As a truely good person, you will find that you have some high times ahead. I am certain that you will discover that everything that Jodi and so many others have said here will bear out to be ‘Ultimate Truths’ in the end.
Please allow me the honor to wish you all the joy and happiness that this season can bring, and the sincere hope that it follows you throughout your life.
Lucy
Absolutely. My dad was a miserable person, living in a world full of people out to get him and people who did him wrong. I do not want to live in a world like that, or be a person like that - and I have chosen not to.
Being a good person or doing the right thing is not always easy. You see people all around you, every day, acting like assholes and getting away with it. They appear to be getting away with it, anyway, and maybe they are. These people don’t know any better. If you’re somebody who does know better, you don’t really have a choice in acting better - you will feel bad when you know you’ve done wrong. Life isn’t fair - I don’t know if anybody’s mentioned that yet.
I read an interesting thing about Buddhism - that part of doing no harm is not allowing people to harm themselves by harming you. Good, decent people don’t let other people walk over them. Think about the people you admire most in the world - chances are, they do many things for other people, but they’re still not doormats.
By the way, this isn’t an easy line to walk - those of us giving you advice on this subject have probably spent many years figuring this stuff out, and every day you have more choices to make (do I help this person now, or would it be better to not help them and force them to help themselves? etc.) It was a good question to ask, though.
Ultimately, you can’t worry about or control what other people do - you just have to tend your own knitting.
Absolutely, Quartz. I think this is something bad people don’t believe and good people take for granted.
thanks for all the responses, guys
I’m sorry for being such a… fake good person. I know I shouldn’t be looking for rewards. I guess I just see people like my sister and my bitchier friends who always seem to get what they want from people in positions of power, often at my expense. And although I know if I were really truly a good person at heart like i want to be and not just a poser like I am, it wouldn’t even bother me… it all just looks pointless some of the time.
And when it comes to being a doormat, I try not to. Nobody ever changed the world without standing up for something. I can stand up for something that matters or something I believe in. I’m not a pushover, exactly. I just think that putting my own desires before somebody else’s when the only thing at stake is what I selfishly want is… well, selfish. If it’s my cookie and Maggie wants it, I would be the only one who suffered from lack of cookie. And I know I can live without the cookie and I don’t need it and shouldn’t want it anyway, so there’s no reason not to give Maggie the cookie. If Maggie wants Annie’s cookie, I’ll fight for Annie. It’s her cookie and if she wants it, she has every right to it. Her cookie is worth fighting for.
anyway, I guess I was just looking for reassurance that, if I can get over my selfishness and become a good person for real, I’ll know it and be happier for it… which is what I got. So I should just say “thanks” and then stfu.
so… thanks
To me it means never having to be ashamed of who you are. Which does mountains of good for my ego…er um… confidence I mean.
Small example of what I’m talking about:
I was at a house part once talking to a group of people. I can’t remeber how the conversation got to this point but one Asshole starts spouting off how he doesn’t think interacial relationships are “Right” and how white women are fucked in there head if they go with a black man.
Upon hearing this the crowd fell silent untill one white woman spoke up and told the AH that she indeed was married to a black man and has three kids by him.
The guy clearly felt like dirt (as well he should have) and promptly left the party.
Also I’m a firm believer in: “Live by the sword; die by the sword.”
You’re not a fake good person. You’re a human being who has wants and needs, but you have kind motives, and that’s what’s important. If your sister is a bitch to get her way, then people resent her. They walk on tiptoes around her lest she explode. I don’t think you’d prefer having everything you want at the cost of people looking suspiciously at you.
Think of the times you’ve been stepped on as learning experiences. If someone says they can’t pay you back because of X, Y, and Z excuses, then you know that person isn’t reliable to pay you back, and you know not to trust them with anything you wouldn’t just give them outright. You’ll gradually learn to say “sorry, I can’t” or “but you haven’t paid me back yet from _____ so I just can’t” or even just “no.”
Wouldn’t a fake good person be a hypocrite?
Ignore your sisters antics and bitchings. Either she will grow up or control the family through her childish behavior for the rest of her life. Which is very sad for both your sister and your parental units. You are not alone in having a farked up family.
She is being rewarded for bad behavior. You are not being rewarded for good behavior. It hurts alot and it should be reversed, but it isn’t. That is what makes it so interesting.
**Get on with your life ** and know that High School Sucks. If you wallow in what she gets that she does not deserve, you are not going to grow as a person. Life gets better. With intermitten Shit Storms and Tsunami’s of Poo, but those are *nothing *compared to the jocularity that is High School.
You’re not a fake good person by any means. Just because you have wants doesn’t mean that fulfilling them comes at someone else’s expense, nor does it mean that if your sister wants what you have, you are some sort of obligation to give it to her because you don’t really need it and can think of no compelling reason why you shouldn’t give it to her. If you want it, that’s all the reason you need, especially if there is no compelling reason she should have it instead of you. Saying “no” doesn’t make you any less a good person; there’s nothing selfish about wanting something for yourself unless you’re doing it more because you don’t want someone else to have it.
Yeah, seeing people get rewarded for bad behaviour sucks, especially when your good behaviour is ridiculed. If it helps, they’re not really being rewarded so much being bribed to shut up and go away. People don’t give in to these kinds of people because it’s the right thing to do, they do it out of fear and/or exasperation. When all is said and done, the ones giving in like the person they gave in to just that much less. Eventually, as I said, they’ll just get fed up with giving in and tell them to sod off.
Looked at another way: Your sister may weasel things out of people, but you’re going to be the one people actually like, and – players notwithstanding – you can be assured that the circle of friends you accumulate will be of superior quality that hopefully you can rely on as much as they rely on you. I’d wager my last buck that the same can’t be said of your sister. That’s a pretty compelling reason to be good, if you ask me.
Hope you’ll pardon the ramblings of a grouchy old man one more time, but - well here goes …
Ultimately, all people are selfish. It is in our nature as sentinent beings. We all have some ulterior motive that keeps us on whatever path we chose in life. Some of us who have chosen the path of good may be looking to an ‘after life’. Others may just want to be perceived by others as being something less (or greater?) than evil. Whatever the motivation, it can be seen as “selfish” from at least one point of view.
Wanting to do good in this world, wanting to be viewed by others as being good, or just wanting that 'feel good about myself" feeling deep down inside is what ultimately holds a civil society together. Those feelings are what gave us UNICEF, the Red Cross (and so many other charitable organizations that it would be pointless to attempt to list them here…).
Oddly enough, the mere act of seeking that “feel good about myself” feeling is - in, of, and by itself - the one thing that the “good” people and the “bad” people have in common. What defines either as being good or bad members of society is the type of reward they ultimately seek.
Are you selfish? Yes. We all are.
Are you a good person? Yes. And I’d wager all I own that you are.
A “bad person” would never ask the type of questions you are asking in your OP. They simply don’t care. They are not concerned with anything that does not give them self-gratification. They never concern themselves with what others may think of them. And they never - ever - concern themselves with such ‘useless’ emotions as remorse or guilt.
You, on the other hand, have demonstrated in just the couple of posts that you have made in this thread that not only do you have those ‘useless’ feelings, you have also discovered that you have a conscience.
Confusing thing, that conscience.
It is like a ‘scale’ in your brain that weighs effort vs. reward and returns a ‘feeling’ without (at least very early in life …) a measurable value. You have to decide what that value is. At some point (and I really think this is where you are now), you notice that a few other people seem to get greater rewards for less effort, so your conscience is evaluating the equation as reward>effort = ENVY.
The trick seems to be in learning that, not only is this a false value for that equation, the equation is improperly constructed. People who are living in a life filled with envy spend their lives always trying to figureout a way to get bigger and better toys in their sand box. They are headed for a train wreck and really will burn out early.
I remember many dark times when passing through my teens and early 20s - searching for who I am and what I wanted to do with my life. Hell, I’d be willing to wager very large sums of money that each and everyone of us who have posted in this thread have done so for the same reason that I did: when I read your OP it was like I was reading a page from a diary reflecting my own thoughts from those times. I vividly remember those feelings, and I’m certain one day you will - as all of us here are trying to do - try to help your child or grandchild over this very same bump in the road of life.
I also remember realizing at some point that the above equation actually works better when evaluated thus:
effort * FGAM = reward*3 FGAM - Feel Good About Myself.
Being good was actually much easier that being bad. Being bad was too much work - so I took the easier path of least resistance. Selfish? You bet. Do I regret that? No way. My life has been comparatively simple and much more rewarding when weighed against the lives of some of the people I went to school with.
[SIDEBAR]Sorry this turned out to be such a long post. Well, no - now that I think about it - I’m not. What I’m really sorry for is my lack of writing skils and my inability to express these thoughts in fewer words …[/SIDEBAR]
SurrenderDorothy, there is no such thing as a ‘fake’ good person. You have already demonstrated that you are a good person, and have mountains good within you to spread around.
Never be afraid to let it shine through when the Tsunami’s of Poo* come.
Lucy
*Note to Shirley Ujest: Damn it, girl, you owe me a new desk pad!
You also need to copyright that, find yourself a decent graphic artist and start making t-shirts. I guarantee it’ll sell better than that ugly smiley face 
ever did. Put me down for 10 ea. size XL (I’m good for it - honest …)
I’d be embarassed to tell you how old I was before I realized that.
For the OP there’s the old “In his own mind Hitler was a good person” clichè, but I know what you mean. I don’t keep score over “I did this and this and this for you and you did that and that for me” but when the scales become so lopsided they start catapaulting the other plate it’s hard not to notice. That’s when I tend to write those people off.
As for people like your sister, it sounds like she’s far from happy. Happy people don’t have meltdowns. Don’t sweat it.
To echo what others have said and apologies for the David Carradine flute music playing in the background, but the reward for being a good person comes from within and not from without. I’m a good person (at least in my estimation) because I like the calibre of people it brings into my inner circle. This year when I needed them the most I was surprised at the people who were not the least bit inclined to help me and it was disappointing and angering, but I was just as surprised at the “casual friends” who I found out were far better friends than I ever imagined (Marie- if you’re readin’ this- I’m talkin’ bout you [among others] babe…). It does come back to you.
But if it doesn’t, then… I still think the Golden Rules (both the “do unto others/do unto you” and the “do not do unto others/would not have them do unto you” variants- very important) brings the closest you can manufacture to inner peace. Some honestly don’t feel this way and there’s not much you can do about it (I’m not going to give one of those “we must respect the way they are” for that’s bullshit- some people are selfish assholes and I find nothing about selfish assholes that needs respecting). Some people love knowledge for its own merits while others couldn’t care less unless there’s immediate application, same basic principal. The ones who matter are the ones who are good people even when nobody’s watching and the ones who read even when they have nobody to talk to about it and they’re the ones who’ll enrich your life.
That said, returning to my response to Matt McL above, it took me most of my life before I realized that an occasional and well deserved utterance of “Fuck you you selfish little bastard/bitch” does NOT (imho) make you a bad person and can do wonders in relieving tension and resentment. I’ve felt far more relief from such incidents than I have regret and I HIGHLY recommend it in moderation and when the target is well tried and well chosen.
Welcome to the part of life we call “Trying to figure it out.” At last count, this stage lasts…until you die. 
At the risk of sounding Zen/New Agey, the goal is not perfection - the goal is to acknowledge where you are and who you are and keep working on it. I don’t think anybody posting in this thread thinks they are perfect; we all have our little “projects” that we keep working on (mine is a tendency to not be very generous).
And, finally, I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Fake it till you make it.” This works great at self-improvement stuff. Act like a good person until the habits take hold and one day you’ll find you ARE a good person - you’re not just acting any more.
I serve to live