By TERENCE EYRE BELANGOY
(Lenten Season thoughts;this essay, Dharma, appeared in my column JUSTIFIED which ran in a local newspaper.)
While
updating my Friendster profile (yes, I do have one; Editor's note: Facebook wasn't yet in vogue at the time) one day, I came
upon quite an interesting widget called "How evil are you? quiz". I took
the quiz to find out for myself. I won't reveal my results as I invoke
my Constitutional right against self-incrimination but I find the
outcome amusing if not revealing.
If ever I have to reveal the quintessential me, it would be this: I have always known myself to be a nice person, even bordering on being an asslicker. This may sound a little tad too subjective, taking into mind a line from a movie: "Deep, deep inside, everybody thinks they're good."
What does it really take to be good? How does one define "goodness"?
I have tinkered with these questions as we are into the Holy Week. (By the way, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines or CBCP said that those acts of self-flagellation and crucifixion are a "wrong understanding" of the teachings of the Catholic Church. Ha-ha , I've always been suspicious of those sadomasochistic acts; I found them too artificial. Now my suspicions are confirmed. Anyway, I've digressed.)
Socially-speaking, I've discovered that most people have a twisted sense of what being good/kind is.
We usually define something as kind/good if that person readily conforms to our pre-existing paradigms, beliefs and value system, or if that other person easily yields to our peccadilloes. Any adolescent would easily describe his/her parent as "mabait" if the latter would allow the former to go out on a weeknight even if there is class the following day. Any relative would call an aunt or uncle kind/good if the latter would, without any fuss, dole out money, overlooking the fact that the beneficiary-relative has not lifted any finger to look for a job , preferring instead to hang out in the neighborhood sari-sari store.
One anecdotal experience I had anent the good/bad dichotomy while I was still in law school involved two librarians in our library. One is a strict spinster while the other is a harmless-looking guy. The crone of a librarian sticks to the rules. If you get delayed in returning a book, you pay the fine---no buts, no excuses. The guy librarian, meanwhile, condones all the borrowers who get delayed (that included me, wink wink nudge nudge), without imposing on these late-returnees the mandatory fine. In the course of time, the old lady-librarian earned the reputation of being "masungit". If you really have to think about it, neither of them can be actually said to be kinder/more good than the other. The old lady was merely following rules and regulations---and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Strict compliance with rules and regulations is one way of disciplining the students which habit (of self-discipline) they are sure to benefit from.
We sometimes confuse being kind/good with people pleasing:not getting into arguments, trying to be understanding all the time, assenting and conceding to other people's idiosyncracies and just allowing others to do their own stuff. (We have the usual phrase "pabayaan mo na.")
A person should be considered good/kind not necessarily because he/she conforms to our views all the time but because he has an exemplary character and values which are truly admirable regardless of the situation. We are talking here of those absolute moral precepts as honesty, love. respect, being non-judgmental, acceptance, tolerance, altruism, doing the right thing and fighting for what is right, etc. etc. Being good means sticking to good values and good moral standards even if such adherence might offend other people whose values change depending on what is good for them. As Stephen covey, author of "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" would intone "even when in Rome, one does not have to do what the Romans do."
In the same manner, people-pleasing must not be construed as being kind/good. It is of course a challenge to distinguish one from the other. It definitely would take intelligence to make a finer distinction. (To digress again, it was best-selling author Robert Kiyosaki who said, "Intelligence is the ability to make finer distinctions.")
Now, despite being good/kind people still misconstrue you as exactly the opposite---well, what the heck. If you can never please everybody (which you never ever will), go ahead and please yourself. Anyway, nobody gets a prize for being good; oftentimes it is just a matter of "prinsipyo."
If ever I have to reveal the quintessential me, it would be this: I have always known myself to be a nice person, even bordering on being an asslicker. This may sound a little tad too subjective, taking into mind a line from a movie: "Deep, deep inside, everybody thinks they're good."
What does it really take to be good? How does one define "goodness"?
I have tinkered with these questions as we are into the Holy Week. (By the way, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines or CBCP said that those acts of self-flagellation and crucifixion are a "wrong understanding" of the teachings of the Catholic Church. Ha-ha , I've always been suspicious of those sadomasochistic acts; I found them too artificial. Now my suspicions are confirmed. Anyway, I've digressed.)
Socially-speaking, I've discovered that most people have a twisted sense of what being good/kind is.
We usually define something as kind/good if that person readily conforms to our pre-existing paradigms, beliefs and value system, or if that other person easily yields to our peccadilloes. Any adolescent would easily describe his/her parent as "mabait" if the latter would allow the former to go out on a weeknight even if there is class the following day. Any relative would call an aunt or uncle kind/good if the latter would, without any fuss, dole out money, overlooking the fact that the beneficiary-relative has not lifted any finger to look for a job , preferring instead to hang out in the neighborhood sari-sari store.
One anecdotal experience I had anent the good/bad dichotomy while I was still in law school involved two librarians in our library. One is a strict spinster while the other is a harmless-looking guy. The crone of a librarian sticks to the rules. If you get delayed in returning a book, you pay the fine---no buts, no excuses. The guy librarian, meanwhile, condones all the borrowers who get delayed (that included me, wink wink nudge nudge), without imposing on these late-returnees the mandatory fine. In the course of time, the old lady-librarian earned the reputation of being "masungit". If you really have to think about it, neither of them can be actually said to be kinder/more good than the other. The old lady was merely following rules and regulations---and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Strict compliance with rules and regulations is one way of disciplining the students which habit (of self-discipline) they are sure to benefit from.
We sometimes confuse being kind/good with people pleasing:not getting into arguments, trying to be understanding all the time, assenting and conceding to other people's idiosyncracies and just allowing others to do their own stuff. (We have the usual phrase "pabayaan mo na.")
A person should be considered good/kind not necessarily because he/she conforms to our views all the time but because he has an exemplary character and values which are truly admirable regardless of the situation. We are talking here of those absolute moral precepts as honesty, love. respect, being non-judgmental, acceptance, tolerance, altruism, doing the right thing and fighting for what is right, etc. etc. Being good means sticking to good values and good moral standards even if such adherence might offend other people whose values change depending on what is good for them. As Stephen covey, author of "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" would intone "even when in Rome, one does not have to do what the Romans do."
In the same manner, people-pleasing must not be construed as being kind/good. It is of course a challenge to distinguish one from the other. It definitely would take intelligence to make a finer distinction. (To digress again, it was best-selling author Robert Kiyosaki who said, "Intelligence is the ability to make finer distinctions.")
Now, despite being good/kind people still misconstrue you as exactly the opposite---well, what the heck. If you can never please everybody (which you never ever will), go ahead and please yourself. Anyway, nobody gets a prize for being good; oftentimes it is just a matter of "prinsipyo."
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