It can be so frustrating sometimes that you feel like giving it all up. You feel like closing shop, walking away and forgetting the whole deal. You feel like calling it quits with being Mr. Good and backsliding into selfishness and self-centeredness. You feel like nobody really cares and why should you?
The thing is, you do a lot of good for people and almost no one turns back to show appreciation. Even those who do, do it so perfunctorily you would think they are only being nice to you for doing what is their "right"! Then there are the nasty ones that will actually turn around and reward your good works with evil. It can be very frustrating, that is if you are doing good so as to be noticed and praised.
Well, if you are doing it to be seen, praised and rewarded by men, then, by all means, give it up! Men lack the capacity to fully appreciate and reward the good you do. It is just not in most men to be truly appreciative. So, you might as well give it all up and forget it entirely if your good works are done to impress men and buy their praise and loyalty. Man's praise and loyalty are as fickle and fake as a mirage or a sand castle.
But if you are doing it because doing good is good and God commands it, then, by all means, continue to do good. In this case you will do a lot of good for time and eternity and it would not matter to you whether your efforts are acknowledged or not. You are going to keep doing good because it is the right thing and because it enables you to make a difference in the World, no matter how small that difference may be.
Ancient Greek dramatist and philosopher, Sophocles, had these words to say about doing good:
"To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious work" - Sophocles.
In other words, no work is as important as, or superior to, doing good. Very strong connclusion indeed. I dare submit that we all would do well to heed it. Turkish playwright, novelist and thinker, Mehmet Murat Ildan, saw it this way:
"The good things you do for others when nobody sees you make you a real star in the sky, a shining noble star beyond reach" - Mehmet Murat Ildan.
So:
- Do good in season and out of season.
- Do good to friends as well as to foes.
- Do good to the deserving as well as the undeserving.
- Do good to neighbours as well as to strangers.
- Do good in secret as well as in the open.
- Do good when you have little as well as when you have much.
- Do good as long as you have breathe in you.
- Most importantly, be good as you do good.
Let me say here that only God has the capacity to reward good works and He will, most certainly, reward you in such serendipitous and unexpected ways as to leave you fully loaded on appreciation. So, do not give up doing good because of negative, unthankful people. Rather, increase your work rate and see your value in life increase astronomically.
I assure you that it is good business to do good. As a matter of fact, it is great business to do good. It is good for the individual as it is for the World.
This is the way Abhijit Naskar - neuroscientist, peace advocate, speaker and bestselling international author - sees the benefits of doing good:
"If everyone had the madness for doing good, there wouldn't be any misery in the World" - Abhijit Naskar.
I encourage you, therefore, to continue to do good whether your work is acknowledged or not. The World needs your good works more than your ego needs soothing. Take your eyes from yourself and your desire for recognition. Focus your eyes on the needs of the World. Do all you can to assuage that need. Help to make the World a better place. That is what you are in this World for; helping to make the World a better place.
You can do it.
It is within your power.
It is Agoso Bamaiyi, your friend for a greater Nigeria and the best things of life.
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