It all comes to this: the simplest way to be happy is to do good.
What are we here for, anyway?
I think that we’re on the earth in order to do good – good for the greatest number of entities possible.
I say entities because I don’t think it should stop at just people – the entire world and all its inhabitants need us to do good.
It’s easy to do good for yourself, easy to do good for your beloved ones, a bit harder to do it for strangers, and damned difficult to do it for those who you perceive as enemies or those who view you as an enemy…
But doing good saves us. I don’t mean that in the way that some religions mean – I don’t have a religion, per se – which is not to say that I’m a non-believer… it just means that what I believe in is far more vast and incomprehensible than what most religious people seem to believe in (if you go by their actions and their speech).
I believe in the ability of all people to do good.
I believe the universe is vast and that there are so many things we’ll never, ever understand – and that we should rejoice in that.
I believe that I can make a difference, somehow.
By saving us, I mean that doing good balances us, keeps us from thinking that everything is about us.
I think – believe – that the spark of doing good is born in us but that it is often overshadowed by the tendency towards selfishness. Babies and children are amoral. We’re supposed to outgrow it, to learn and develop a moral compass, but it’s not easy by any means.
I think that the first steps are when we discover how good it feels to do good for others. That’s a rather selfish way to begin, but hell, whatever works to get good being done. Although there is what Kant said about using others as the means, instead of the ends…
The highest form of doing good, I think, is when you do good for others without any expectations for recognition, without acknowledgement or praise or any external form of incentive.
Some who are doing good for many:
Photo credit: By NASA/Apollo 17 crew; taken by either Harrison Schmitt or Ron Evans [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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