one more question

While doing some house-keeping I discovered one more question from my poll. (For future reference, LJ doesn't send mail when people answer polls, so you actually have to check, or notice, the answers. So, sorry for the delay; I don't know how long your question has been sitting there.)

What's your reason for doing good works? (I sound flippant, I think, but I mean it seriously.)

Several reasons, in no particular order:

Karmic debt: Other people have done good works from which I've benefitted, so I "owe" the collective good will. I usually can't specifically repay the people who helped me out when I needed it, so the least I can do is help out other people who now need it.

Enlightened self-interest: the world is a better place when we are all good to each other. I would like other people to be good to me, so it behooves me to make this as easy as possible, including by setting a good example.

It's the right thing to do, morally: yes, sometimes I have an advantage due to real effort on my part; I've "earned" it, so I should benefit from it (and if someone tries to take it away I'll fight). But in other cases I have done absolutely nothing to deserve an advantage. It could just as easily be me with [insert fatal disease of your choice], or with [insert dysfunctional-family story of your choice], or whatever. So if I just happen to have the means to help out, and I didn't really do anything to earn that advantage, then it's wrong for me to hoard.

This is an area that's a little fuzzy for me, I'll admit. I am not a socialist or a communist; I believe that people have the right to work hard and earn advantages. I object to many of the tax schemes that have been proposed over the years. (Taxes are involuntary, though, so in a different category.) But on the other hand, does a high-tech worker really deserve a significantly higher salary than a nurse, or a social worker, or the guy who hauls away the trash? Well, no. It's just the way our society works -- but take away the nurses and the social workers and the trash collectors and we're all doomed.

"Good works" isn't just about money, of course, but it's a fairly common way for it to manifest. Some people have little free time but have disposable cash; others have lots of free time and little money. The world needs both.

It costs very little: Other kinds of good works are centered on individual, personal interaction. It costs nothing to be kind, and little to be helpful. Yeah, sometimes it backfires; the guy you say hello to is lonely and latches onto you and you sometimes have to disentangle. It's a risk I've decided I'm willing to take. (I'm reminded of a past landlady, of blessed memory. Very kind person -- she did more pre-emptive maintenance than any other landlord I knew, routinely brought over cookies and cakes, and so on. But you could not have a short conversation with her, either. It was occasionally frustrating, but on the whole it was a good and kind thing to give her the time she wanted.)

Ok, one more: you may have noticed that I haven't mentioned religion or God in any of this. I probably wouldn't have ended up where I am religiously if I had a fundamental disconnect on something like this, so that's not really the cause, but it is a source of awareness. I'm not always successful, of course, but I am trying to do a better job than I have in the past in the "good works" department, and a lot of that is because my religion has made me aware of just how important it is that we treat each other well. For anyone reading this who recognizes the reference, I've found the Chofetz Chayim rather inspirational.

This probably isn't a complete answer, but I think it hits the major points.