You Get what you Give

Akkarin wrote:

Goken wrote: You give good, you get good.

What happens when what you receive never comes close to what you've given? What if in spite of all you give you only ever receive bad?

Maybe it helps to stop expecting to be repaid for "being good" and just be good because that's who you are. "Being good" out of greed is just the same as being bad.

Snowy Aftermath wrote:

Akkarin wrote:

Goken wrote: You give good, you get good.

What happens when what you receive never comes close to what you've given? What if in spite of all you give you only ever receive bad?

Maybe it helps to stop expecting to be repaid for "being good" and just be good because that's who you are. "Being good" out of greed is just the same as being bad.

I thanked you because I agree with the first part. Expecting a return is a path to disappointment. However the second half I disagree totally. To be expect quid pro quo is not the same as being bad. If I give a person money to help them keep their car and then demand a favor in return it is not the same as if I not only refused the loan but mocked them for their situation. Its not as nice but it for sure is not bad.

What Snowy said reminded me of this. In the US Navy you can get a medal for doing community service. If you can show documentation/proof of service you can submit for the medal. I never received/submitted for the medal though I have done community service most all of my life. First, I would never ask the people/organization I was helping for documentation to "prove" I was helpful. Second, I never felt I should have to tell my Chain of Command of the "good deeds" I was doing, they should notice. Reality is, most people will not notice. Most, will not care.

I perform community service, help others, because I am able to, should we not simply be helping one another because we are able to and not for some gain, regardless of what that gain may be (Karma, money, feeling, medal). Where I have questioned others intentions of community service was in fact, did you do this to get a medal or because it is what we should be doing?

We have a thread here in the forums where you can mention the community service that we do. I hesitate to post anything in that thread because I do not want to feel like I deserve a thank you, pat on the back, compare my deeds with others, brag about what I do. To me it ruins the intent of why I do the deeds I do.

Here is a thread that Goken started.

https://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/open-discussions/114512-how-do-you-shine-fellow-beacons

Whether you help an elder across the street, pick up trash, be a First Responder, help in soup kitchens/nursing homes, cut your neighbors lawn, whatever, the deed is equal in the eyes of the person you are helping. Each action performed, no matter the scale, influences those around us. Maybe someone seeing you do good, does good simply because they saw you do so.

Do you do good so that you can get good? Some could argue that it is an act of selfishness. Even going to the point of saying "I do good because it makes me feel good to help others." Are you doing this for the feeling it gives you?

As Jedi we talk about service and duty as being part of what we are, the Path we walk. Humility.

As for revenge and payback, it becomes a cyclic thing. I get you back for getting me, then you get me back for getting you back, etc... Family feuds and wars start over petty things like this.

We should be mindful and aware of the future impacts of our actions/inactions (Inaction can be worse than not doing anything, especially when dealing with bullies).

Instead of revenge or paypack, justice is what should be sought. We should strive to be unencumbered by our personal interest. Once completed the immediate satisfaction of revenge and payback goes away. What are you left with?

Snowy Aftermath wrote:

Akkarin wrote:

Goken wrote: You give good, you get good.

What happens when what you receive never comes close to what you've given? What if in spite of all you give you only ever receive bad?

Maybe it helps to stop expecting to be repaid for "being good" and just be good because that's who you are. "Being good" out of greed is just the same as being bad.

What I was really trying to get at was that the OP was only viewing the concept in the negative. Bad people having bad stuff happen. I was trying to say to try to look at the positive side of it instead. Not "Do good things for the sole reason of having good things happen in return." That is greed. Just trying to stay positive.

And in answer to Akkarin's post. Learn to be satisfied in that you did a good thing. Don't focus on what it did for you.

To be frank, I don't think fairness or justice exist outside of human conduct. As a note, I do not believe that much of human conduct is concerned with fairness or justice either. The universe moves as it will move. Things are born and they die.

That said, I think that justice and fairness are essential parts of human conduct.

This sfeels like how we have made Gods in our own, sometimes idealized, image. I think we desperately want the universe to be a fair place. We want to think that the people who hurt us will be punished. We want to think things are going well because of how good we are.

But I see nothing that indicates that any of this is so.

For us, it must be enough to do good and do well, and there is no guarentee we will be loved for it, but I wouldn't turn any of that down.

One must do right because he or she undertsands that to be right. And yes, I'm sure there will be a parcing of what is good, that endless search for loopholes. I answer with Marcus Aureliu: "Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."

There will be no final reward. Jedi up.

Brother Cabur it's taken me this long to realize that very statement. If I act as no final reward my end result then is present. Scary concept.

There's a meme that says "we are not humans having a spiritual experience; we are spirits having a human experience!"

We spend just a blink of time on this big blue marble, compared to the span of eternity. We separate ourselves from God, and stuff ourselves into these fleshy little meat sacks we call human beings and come here to this inhospitable place called earth for just a moment in time so that we can learn the things that we cannot learn in "Heaven" (I say Heaven, but call it what you like: Nirvana; Valhalla; the Other Realm; etc...).

You see, in Heaven there is no way to fathom the idea of forgiveness, because there is no one to forgive, so we must come here and have wrongs done to us so that we have the opportunity to learn forgiveness. This goes for many other ideas that cannot be understood in Heaven: Triumph; Self-Sacrifice; Humility; Physical Love; Compassion; etc... There is just no mechanism in the perfect realm to understand these concepts, so we have to come here, and put ourselves in these dire straits so that we can experience, and learn.

To speak to the actual topic of this thread - we most certainly will not get what we give, because that's not this place's purpose is. Our purpose it to take whatever this world hands us, learn from it, and give good in return. If every time you did something good, you got something good in return, you would never learn the lesson of doing good just for good's sake!

"Jedi Up", I like that Cabur, thank you!

Cabur Senaar wrote: One must do right because he or she undertsands that to be right. And yes, I'm sure there will be a parcing of what is good, that endless search for loopholes. I answer with Marcus Aureliu: "Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."

There will be no final reward. Jedi up.

Frank Herbert's Gom Jabbar was described as a test to determine if "human" instincts in an individual could over-top the animal. The inhumanity of which humans are capable speaks to the need to be more "human than you-man..."

And that is exactly the point, nail-hammer-home, if being a "good person" isn't reward in and of itself, then giddy-up Jedi, it's time to go...

Cabur Senaar wrote: To be frank, I don't think fairness or justice exist outside of human conduct. As a note, I do not believe that much of human conduct is concerned with fairness or justice either. The universe moves as it will move. Things are born and they die.

The universe has moved humans to have an understanding of fairness and justice used to inform our conduct. As abstract constructions these concepts do not exist outside of their human confines, but exist they do.

When people act they may not do so with these concepts in mind, but we live with their implications. These concepts can act as a feedback loop. Our actions inform us of what we consider 'just' and 'fair', these concepts inform future actions, those actions reinforce, or challenge, such concepts further. Over time we don't need to think about these concepts at all, their implications and our actions blend and become indistinguishable.

This is why there are no 'just' or 'fair' absolutes, our actions and concepts move together with the universe.