> Life is not a game where people build up points with you and you start to be kind to them only if they maintain themselves above a threshold.
Be careful. It is trivial for others to take advantage of such selfless kindness. Ingratitude is common, as is sociopathy. Altruists often discover that the world does not reciprocate.
Is there any data on this? Ingratitude and sociopathy are not at all common in my experience. Differences in character, defensiveness, insecurity are more common already (and sometimes they look like ingratitude when you don't understand the other person's point of view), but the vast majority of people I meet are just nice...
And yet, at the end of the day, I always sleep better knowing that I put the effort in to be a good person, even if it didn’t work out the way I’d hoped.
I get the cynicism; it’s easy to feel like the world is just full of uncaring people sometimes. But, does adding one more help?
You aren't a good person for being subservient. You are a bad person, because you are enabling bad people.
Evil is in most cases a Yin/Yang system of abuser and willing victim. Both are dependent on each other for their common goal of creating evil in this world.
The abuser from primitive motives: "I have to do it to them, because if I'm not an abuser, somebody will make me a victim."
The willing victim because he thinks it's an easy path to be a good person: "I don't have to engage my heart and soul, just take abuse and each "point" of abuse turns into good boy points for me."
There is nothing to be admired about victims and the victim cult is a mistake. They deserve empathy and help, they don't deserve admiration.
Not at all. It's a reflection on human behaviour, in the content that the other commenter said that you shouldn't concern yourself with bad actors as long as you can later say that "you did the right thing". That can bring you to bad situations, as another poster warned about above.
Taking care to not be an abuser and to not be a victim is rather the best path, even if it demands more from the person. It's easy to just do what others tell you, but it will soon bring misery.
It's that hope that things will work out that causes suffering and disappointment.
"I'll be nice, and others will be nice in turn" is magical thinking. There is no such deal in place.
It's perfectly possible for others to soak up all that niceness and then suddenly leave without being equally nice in return. If pressed, they might even say they didn't ask for the goodness that befell them, they were just happy to accept when it was offered, thereby absolving themselves of any obligation.
> Be careful. It is trivial for others to take advantage of such selfless kindness.
What harm does is do? Altruistic kindness is not affected by the response. That's the point. Being "exploited" for kindness is not possible, it's not a currency.
> Ingratitude is common, as is sociopathy.
Source? If anything, most anecdotes point to the opposite, gratitude and kindness is extremely common.
Be careful. It is trivial for others to take advantage of such selfless kindness. Ingratitude is common, as is sociopathy. Altruists often discover that the world does not reciprocate.