A Theory of Goodness

Have you ever helped someone being disinterested and with a selfless concern for the well being of that person? A past event just popped up in your mind, didn’t it? And it feels good too, doesn’t it?

What I am talking about here isn’t some charity work you did, I am talking about the times when you helped one of your friends, family members or relatives just to put a smile on their face, just to make them feel a bit more cheerful or a bit more happy, this is what all of us want, to make our-self feel better by helping someone else feel better, and it works every time.

From our very early childhood days we are taught to be good to others, we are taught to be kind hearted and never be bad to others, then why is it that sometimes we knowingly or unknowingly hurt few people? Why is it that we feel remorse towards some people? Why is it that sometimes we want to leave them the way they are and not look at what is bothering them? The answer is hidden in our past experiences where we sought to help someone and instead of making us feel good, it made us feel noxious, instead of shrugging away that feeling, we may have chose to keep in our mind as a reminder to what happens when we go out of our way to help others and how it made us feel miserable. That’s the problem with us, we humans hold on to negative feelings more than the positive ones and when we hold on to these negative feelings we find more and more reasons to support our decision, the reasons may be absurd but at that moment of time everything seems to be logical.

Making yourself believe that what you did was right no matter the consequences are good or bad is the most important thing, what you did was in good faith, it’s the fault of the other person who couldn’t understand your actions and who doesn’t understand the importance he/she has in your life, just because of few bad incidents if you choose to keep yourself away from helping others then it is the most irrational decision you could have ever taken as it questions the person you’re letting yourself become because of just a random incident that took place and that too wasn’t your fault, if you did it in a good faith, that’s all you need to keep in mind. Something that you need to keep in mind is that maybe out of 100 times you did something to make someone feel better, it is possible that all of those 100 times you made the right decision and exceptions are really rare.

Something I remember from my childhood days are the animated series I used to watch and in most of them no matter what the consequences were the protagonist of the series would never back down, one of the best examples is that of Optimus Prime the leader of Autobots and centre of the Transformers series, Prime’s values and thoughts are that of a perfectly good being, no matter how many times he was let down by his team members, he stood up for them, no matter how many times his values were challenged, he always stood by them too, that’s what a really good human being should do, ignore the faults of others and accept the good in one’s self and maybe that is what we all need to inculcate in us.

‘I am Good’, that’s the only positive self-affirmation we ever need to be good, not just to others but to ourselves too. This affirmation has multiple meanings, it can be interpreted in multiple ways but when thought of, it holds the same meaning you want yourself to believe in and that's what the theory of goodness is all about.