I know everyone here is cynical. But damned my spirits will not be crushed.
Humanity can do good and evil. Most of the time I try to do good and help others.
I have chipped in for people at the cashiers. Helped by donating, giving random stuff, helping them or even rescuing them.
There are many others that way. I like to believe.
It starts with you. Take your time in life to make it better.
Also sacrifice the billionaires for humanity.
Don’t say it more. America, freedom country ?
This post is X-Files “I want to believe” territory…
I could believe this story until the card wasn’t just a thank you.
Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, what I personally hate about these stories is that it cheapens the act by making it performative or self-congratulatory. If you do a good deed you’re not supposed to talk about it, and certainly not in this overly flowery trash prose.
I’m not religious at all anymore but I lived a significant amount of time in the Bible Belt so you have to steel yourself against religious hypocrites or go insane. So IMO this is one of the good lessons in the Bible, for what it’s worth.
“When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret."
There’s merit in “do good and talk about it”. Public sentiment is very dependent on that.
There’s an argument to be made that this kind of story inspires more people to go good things in ways that they may simply not have thought of otherwise.
And also, there’s a difference between a video that its edited etc. and someone just recounting what happened to share the moment.
Honestly, if it gets people to be kind, do it. But do it genuinely. Help people and brag, but don’t exploit them. I volunteer, I post about it all the time, but I’d still go even if I wasn’t posting, I really don’t care about the clout.
Help one another, show others your good deed. But don’t do it for clout, do it because it’s the right thing to do.
There’s worse things to attention whore about. You could call this setting a good example, too.
The more I think about it, the more I don’t like the mindset that good deeds must be done in secret. People shouldn’t expect anything in return other than appreciation, but I think good deeds do deserve appreciation.
And I’d bet that bit in the bible was actually there to discourage competition and make it look like no one helps each other so the church is more necessary.
As long as people aren’t just making up shit, exaggerating wildly, twisting what happened, or humiliating the people they help.
The good deed doesn’t need to be done in secret. But the person doing the good deed shouldn’t brag about it. Let the person who got the cake post about it if they want. And omg the writing in this post lol, white knuckles on the purse give me a break. Talk about exploitation
So what do you suggest? The internet, tv, everyday life, etc is full of people doing the wrong thing constantly and being rewarded insanely for it.
Then a person posts a wholesome story that might inspire others to kindness and your response is this?
What a sad world we live in right now.
You kind of need good actions TO BE SEEN. Come on man.
You get those stories from the mother posting about how a bakery did this really nice thing for her.
From my perspective, if someone advertises that they did <nice thing> then it’s just ad spend. Give them kudos for spending a portion of their marketing budget on charity rather than just commercials, but it is still marketing. This can apply to individuals building up their social reputation too.
So we should do good deeds in complete silence and just hope that someone notices.
I hate to break it you guys but that’s not working anymore. It hasn’t for decades.
no. the fact you want someone to notice robs the good deed of it’s goodness.
because you only did it for your own selfish gain. you’re so selfish that you can’t conceive of doing good without it being recognized as it’s own reward.
But don’t worry, that’s ‘normal’. in our society. in our society, doing something without it having value to yourself is considered a mental illness, because we have so internalized capitalism and greed, you can’t even conceive of not gaining something from doing something for someone else
and hence why we live in brutally transactional world, and why everyone cries about how relationships and community is falling apart… because they don’t see any point unless THEY get something out of it.
No it doesn’t. If you do it specifically for clout, that is not a good deed. But doing a good deed and then telling others about it because it made you feel good isn’t.
Naw dawg, when I do a good thing I want people to notice. Not so that I get a reward or social credit for doing something nice. Fuck that. I want to normalize doing nice things. I want people to talk about the nice thing I did, then when they have a chance to do something nice they remember me and pass it forward. I want someone else to benefit from my kindness and for that act of kindness to propagate forward.
Exactly.
Saw a couple of kids recently gather some litter off the ground and throw it away.
Myself and a few other people noticed and gave those kids major props.
We need to encourage civility for everyone’s sake.
Every sentence there is about you making yourself feel good.
None if it, is about how the other people feel.
No, it’s about them wanting other people to do good things, and trying to encourage that by example. And I think they have a point - it’s hard to model a behavior when nobody is aware of it, and it’s hard to normalize a behavior nobody talks about
There is no such thing as a selfless good deed. We’re social animals. We feel GOOD when people around us feel GOOD. We’re intelligent animals. We notice this pattern and conclude that if we make another person feel good, WE’LL feel good too. This is virtuous.
Sharing good deeds make them feel NORMAL and people like to follow the standards for normal behaviour to fit in. This creates a virtuous circle.
Sure some people only do a good deed to advertise it because they’ll get more capital out of it than the cost of the deed. But that’s not what’s happening here. I don’t know the store or the owner, they get nothing from me.
Actually doing good shit instead of making up bullshit stories on the internet would be a fantastic start. Maybe not spend half the post glazing themselves too.
“What do you suggest?”
… to do good deeds without announcing them. I thought it was pretty clear from the post.
So you punch down at anyone who dares to be inspired by a feel good story?
You think you’re helping?
You’re not. The only thing you’re doing is giving people who see your opinion another reason to only think of themselves.
Punching down? I am helping. You didn’t seem to understand from the post that the OP was suggesting you just do good deeds and NOT post about them online.
Get pissed cuz I’m answering YOUR question lol
“don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”
No. You don’t.
You’re not a good person if you need it to be acknowledged by others. That’s precisely what leads to perverse performative behaviors, and stupid shit like volentourism, where everyone is being exploited to generate a image for the customer that they have done something selfless and good for someone else, when all it’s done is line the pockets of the people who run those orgs.
Frankly, I quite a volunteer org two years ago because they decided the good they were doing had to be acknowledged publicly, and they should get money, and the people involved should get a cut of that money… oh and we should only help the ‘most unfortunate’ people because that will score us more points/money… that’s no longer volunteering. That’s your typical capitalism mindset in a non-profit coating. Don’t do things for people unless you can get maximum return from your effort…
So we just assume the intention is always malice.
That’s an exhausting way to live
you’re the one who can’t think in anything other than absolutes.
I think you really believe that the world is as black and white as you think it is.
Good luck with that.
Doing a good deed and telling someone about it because it made you and someone else feel good is not an inherently bad thing and you clearly lack the nuance to understand any different.
I feel bad for you.
cool, i feel bad for you that nothing has any value unless you can brag about it to someone else.
I have no idea who this person is. I have no idea if this is true. But i need to at least think there are people like this in the world. Especially right now. So I NEED stories like this.
There are people like this in the world. Believe that. I can’t count the number of times people have helped me out of the blue, randomly, without prodding, when I’ve been seriously down on my luck. Empathy is one of the most primal human emotions. Only psychopaths lack it.
Because you spend too much time on social media.
Go to a local baseball game for kids and watch people coach kids. You’ll see it happen regularly. But you won’t, and you don’t.
So you’d rather cling to these weird dramatic social media posts instead of be involved the boring nonsense of the everyday world that isn’t as dramatic.
Well aren’t you just a lovely person.
yeah but then I’ll see those same people try to run a cyclist off the road twenty minutes later because they didn’t ride in the gutter filled with bottle glass
Amen brother. But this is the society we live in, everything is only worth doing if you get something out of it.
And we bitch and whine about how we treat each other… well this is how we treat each other. Your sob story has no merit unless I can use it to make me feel good about myself or get internet fame for it. Otherwise… fuck you you loser.
Frankly I am socially isolating myself because this performative bullshit hypocrisy is so rife, even among the atheist liberals. Everyone wants to incessantly brag how amazing they are because they did something nice once for someone, which was really trivial act… and often use it to justify their own selfish choices.
I´m not sure whether you´re a bot or not, insisting on spreading negativity on your every comment. And there are many. To any humans reading this: Please don´t let moron bots like this stop you from believing in the goodness of humanity.
I’m a school bus driver and I got a card at the end of the year from all the kids at one stop. They all signed their names, but one fourth-grade girl added “thank you for driving us from place to place and for making us smile every day. We ♥ you!” I about melted. Much more meaningful than the fucking Panera gift card it came with (I know, I know: never look a gift horse in the microwave).
These kids are all rich as fuck, so it’s not exactly the same as OP’s story.
The best charity doesn’t look like charity
Is charity porn a thing? I think it’s now a thing. Or maybe charity erotica?
Whether it’s true or not is beside the point. It’s plausible, that’s enough. It’s plausible, because similar things do happen all the time. People are mostly kind and thoughtful, and it’s good to be reminded of that.
I bought a homeless looking woman lunch on my card a few weeks ago, because I didn’t have any cash to give her. Does me telling my family how good it made me feel cheapen the act? I’d like to hope not, because from my eyes it’s not self congratulatory, it’s sharing something small they were able to do for another person because it makes them happy. I don’t get the negativity in these threads.
You just told all of Lemmy about it. That woman is now hungry again and it was all for nothing :(
Edit: y’all need some sarcasm lessons and fuck off with bashing people who do good deeds
“You didn’t completely change that person’s life and solve all of their problems forever, so you’re just a performative, egotistical, self-fellating waste of time and I hate you because there is no greater reward or provided innate comfort for continuing to survive and suffer the aspects of life in general!” - You.
I didn’t think it was very funny
That’s ok
Yeah let’s all stop showering, sleeping, and eating because its just gonna need to be done again.
Hey friend. I had these thoughts. Generalized Anxiety Disorder with a hearty side of CPTSD and clinical depression was the diagnosis.
Chunk that shit.
I have no idea what you’re on about
You claim that because the woman would be hungry again, the action was meaningless.
We all get hungry again. It doesn’t diminish that we ate before. Or that we must eat again, even though we just ate.
I am drawing a line between this fatalistic black and white thinking of “well then it’s pointless” to my own experience with mental illness.
Chunking is a cognitive technique which orders information or tasks into smaller segments in order to avoid being overwhelmed.
Its a joke bro
That’s all I see
You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a story, let’s say, and afterward you ask, “Is it true?” and if the answer matters, you’ve got your answer.
For example, we’ve all heard this one. Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies.
Is it true?
The answer matters.
You’d feel cheated if it never hapened. Without the grounding reality, it’s just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue. Yet even if it did happen–and maybe it did, anything’s possible–even then you know it can’t be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it’s a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, “The fuck you do that for?” and the jumper says, “Story of my life, man,” and the other guy starts to smile but he’s dead.
That’s a true story that never happened.
god i hated that book.
people are mostly kind and thoughtful to people they identify with and think who are part of their tribe. they want to help ‘good people who are struggling’
they are most cruel and nasty to people who they don’t feel this way about. what do you think the owner would have done if the customer had been a black man vs a white woman?
statically, the variance in how they’d be treated is fucking insane. and you’d have comments here vigoriously defending her right to feel afraid/threatened/alarmed, instead of sympathetic and giving.
This reveals more about you rather than making any kind of point.
yes, anyone who mentions bad things happen is a bad person, clearly.
if only we every thought happy thoughts, nothing bad would ever happy and we’d all be perfect people.
must be nice to live in such absolute world wherever everyone who isn’t you is the problem. and the facts of a objective reality don’t exist.
we should also kill all sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, because their research is negative or something
And everyone clapped
fuck off and let us have a little optimism. shits bad enough without some doomer debbie downer trying to suck the single iota of wholesome energy out of a post regardless of whether it’s real or not.
This is toxic positivity, which is toxic.
Anyway, I gave half of my last sandwich to a homeless guy yesterday. Then later it turned out he was a billionaire and he appointed me to be CEO of his factory. And you’re an asshole if you dispute that story, somehow.
it’s only positive if you’re both not male and not white.
otherwise you’re just perpetuating the patriarchy and you should have gave that sandwich to a more oppressed homeless person
Please stop. You’re going to make me cry and I’m standing right in front of the croissant tray.
Maybe you’ll get a free cake!
yeesh, seems like that struck a nerve. calm down
its false hope though
The placebo effect exists for a reason. Also, smiling makes you happier.
yeah, clearly the answer to climate change and other massive social problems is for us to just smile more.
just like my parents used to tell me i should be happy for all they did for me, while they systematically abused me… lol
Yes that’s exactly the same…
If I ever see ICE kidnap someone I’ll try to remember to yell out to them, “remember to smile it’ll make you happeir!!”
that’s a false equivalency and you know it.
How so? Do people getting abducted by ice not need cheering up? If they smile it will make them happier. And then I’ll make a post about it online so everyone knows how good I am.
wtf. you are just stirring shit. very obviously this does not apply to personal emergencies.
why am I even replying, you know full well what you are doing…
It’s so depressing that we live it social structures where this poverty is possible.
We
Should
Do
Better
what social structure has ever existed where such poverty doesn’t exist?
other than the one in your head.
The wealth in this post is far more than any billionaire could ever muster.
I hope we find our way back to humanity before its too late.
We’re all still here. We’ve just been duped into letting the wrong people run the show.
Why does this story generate so much sympathy on here for the person instead of fiery rage against the social system that enables this?
Why should a small entrepreneur have to give away their products out of good will instead of society enabling everyone to buy a few cupcakes once a year?
Why socialise the problems for the many while promoting private profits for the few?
To be honest, I’m so full of rage at the system and the people who prop it up that every so often I just need to let myself feel happy and proud of the people who live in said system and help to starve it, not feed it.
Absolutely there are people who like it because it helps validate their shitty positions but there are also people who just need a win to keep them going in pushing back. It helps to know that your anger is not a lonely anger, that your need for justice is not unique and small.
It’s called the orphan crushing machine.
People celebrate that one orphan has been saved from being crushed by the orphan crushing machine. No one questions that we have an orphan crushing machine. No one acknowledges that the machine is of our own creation. No one realizes that we could stop and dismantle the machine at any point. Because we have always had an orphan crushing machine. There’s a prophecy that we will lose everything and it will all collapse if the orphan crushing machine is stopped. The prophecy was written by those who made the machine.
So people celebrate one orphan was saved, but how dare you suggest we dismantle the orphan crushing machine. So it goes unacknowledged.
As people all too familiar with The Orphan Crushing Machine, it’s nice reading a plausible story about one person acting against its grain.
It’s okay though. The very next story on the feed is probably focused on the machine itself - probably something about a capacity increase, or new motors or blades.
you suppose there is a world in which no such machine could ever exist.
there isn’t. this is simple a throught experiment.
in the real world there will always be poverty, and there are plenty of folks in the real world who tell you they are in poverty, when they are not.
Oh no, the machine is not poverty. If you think the machine refers to poverty you don’t understand the metaphor.
Because we all need a mental break once in a while. Those of us that care and understand are exhausted by little Timmy’s lemonade stand to pay for his dad’s cancer treatment, Susie’s cupcake drive to help with mom’s insulin bills, a gofundme to help pay for someone’s unexpected disability, or just about every infuriating event where people paint glowing pictures like this to signal the virtue of the hard worker engaging in the desperate grind to save someone rather than be enraged at the failure of society that necessitates child labor or social largesse to pay for someone’s continued life and liberty.
It’s fucked up. I hate that I have a government that would piss away trillions on bombs and Sturmabteilung killing people rather than invest in the citizens so someone of any age can afford insulin, or a cake or piñata for a kid’s birthday.
So allow us to shed a tear over a potentially apocryphal story where someone’s life is better for just a moment thanks to a person who expected nothing in return.
This is me. On the one hand, I am filled with rage that we have a society where a young mother can’t even afford a nice birthday for her kid, where the first part is the sort of story I witnessed over and over when I was in retail. On the other hand, this sort of story, even if it’s embellished or untrue, lets me hold hope for at least a moment that there’s good in this world worth fighting for.
the vast majority of your fellow citizens aren’t. they have more voting power than you
and they like this way.
A small business like a bakery is still within a community. Massive corporations are not.
Because we cannot forget to pull one another up when we have a higher perch.
Yeah, we still need prosocial behaviors on the individual level regardless of what wider economic system we have.
The use praise for prosocial behaviors as an excuse for a broken system is mostly a third world problem, with the USA at the helm.
Because there wouldn’t be a ruling class if it were different.
because people want to feel good, not bad.
and if you try to make them feel bad, they will simple hate you.
I really want this story to be true.
This story, as written by op may or may not be true. But there are quiet little stories of generosity just like it happening everyday that no one ever hears about.
There are a handful of small good things I’ve done in my life, usually white lies like this, that I specifically never want to communicate to anyone. I don’t want them to be a thing to talk about, because I didn’t do them to talk about them.
Every so often I need to remind myself that I am capable of doing good in the world and I have them filed away in my mind. Especially now that I’m more set in a routine and these things happen less
While silent kindness is the most altruistic, there is such thing as taking it too far.
I used to maintain the strictest secrecy about all my good deeds. I thought acting like a shit person in public would be a nice disguise. Until I convinced everyone that I truly was a shit person, with no redeeming qualities.
Then I had less and less opportunities to do secret good deeds, as people regarded me with distrust and suspicion. Eventually even kindness was received as a sleight. I had to withdraw, and now I can only do nice things when I can cover my tracks so thoroughly that no one will ever know where it even came from.
I’ve gotten myself into a good bit of trouble sneaking around trying to find opportunities to do nice things. Don’t be afraid to be seen being kind.
Not too long ago, I filled my grandmas car with gas thinking it was a nice thing to do and not mentioning it because a good deed isn’t a good deed if you brag? Anyhow she thought her fuel gauge was broken, overflowed her tank and ended up needing the condensers (?) replaced.
I thought that story was gonna end with gramma waving her cane and yelling “She only takes high octane, you little punk! I raised your momma better than this!”
Nah, I knew that part (also my grandma walks 2 miles a day and has no need for a cane).
Batman? Is that you?
I am the night
I’ve done similar from time to time, especially in my trade.
I’m not certain, but i think there’s a belief where doing someone a kindness like that should not be something that you tell them about, or anyone else for that matter–you simply do it…or like in this case, you frame it in a way that you don’t allow them to accept it as charity or a favor etc… The kindness is the truest when it’s simply done and told to no one else. That’s a little treat you keep for yourself. 🙂
There’s a question of morality of if something is good if you’re doing it for something in return, be that just a “thank you” or publicity. To be truly a good deed, the deed itself should be enough. A charitable donation without a name was a donation done for good. One where they wanted people to know that they did it can still do good, but it’s debatable whether the act is good.
I fully agree! I first picked up a different take on Charity from a small book called The New Sins by David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame, if you’re old like me)… He basically said charity so often comes with certain unspoken strings attached that it could nearly be used as a means of controlling or pacifying someone by doing something charitable for them. It can also be a cheap way of whitewashing one’s reputation. There are a lot of reasons why charity isn’t always the good it can be presented as.
you get it. but lots of folks here are so egotistical they can’t conceive of a charitable donation without their name attached… and then go on to be like how that will ‘inspire others to do good’.
the concept of just doing good without recognition or reward just doesn’t exist for them, because what would be the point?
because apparently all the people who silently do good shit as part of their everyday life are just schmucks or something.
You had to follow up the em dash story with a quietly didn’t you?
I want mothers to be able to afford a tiny cake once a year.
But we can’t have cake and data centers.
Can’t have billionaires and eat them too. Gotta choose one or the other.
But without datacenters, how will we generate fake stories like this one?
Hey I once had an airline worker change and upgrade my flight completely free of charge because I (tearfully) told her I forgot my wallet more than 5 hrs away, had missed my flight, inadvertently gotten my credit card cancelled, and had no way to charge my phone to call for help or get back home.
People are good sometimes.
Yeah, don’t we all.
Yeah I always buy candles at the bakery
That’s where I get my tiny candles.
I don’t care if it is or not. Gets me in the feels every time.
Heh, “She had walked here”, and that’s a sign of poverty. Tell me you’re American without saying you’re American.
Walking there in the rain with shoes that absorb water is, even in places without the car culture of the US.
Or it’s a sign of lack of planning, but that doesn’t fit as well with the rest of the situation.
Or an advertisement for a certain popular YouTube shoe company
Well sure, but given the community, I’m commenting under the assumption that this is genuine.
