Decent People

There is a longstanding belief most of us hold, however unconsciously. We believe that if we are good, decent people, and go through our day acting cheerful and nice to everyone, people will hold a higher respect for us. That some good karma will come back around and give us a nice boost, or that we will earn the admiration of the public.

Nope.

Fact is, nice people get screwed over. An example of this occurred when my brother and I helped unpack the car as we landed by the small house we would all be staying in. As we did so, our other four siblings immediately went into the house, picking out their beds as we continued to haul suitcases. The result: although my brother and I are the largest and perhaps most deserving of a decent bed, we ended up on the floor on half-inch thick pads.

Events such as these, the insignificant, petty unfairnesses of life beg the question: why? Why, when I try to be so good, do I end up at the bottom of the pecking order?

The answer is a sad one. We consider it a crime for anyone to take advantage of the foolish compliance bestowed by our benevolence, and yet, we are hypocrites in this regard. When we see someone acting with good will, our first course of action is to hop on this opportunity. We are so eager for a cheap opportunity for unprotested sacrifice for our own gain that we forget how mug we hate having it done on ourselves.

This leads to a vicious cycle. Because this persistent mugging of goodwill, those decent people begin to turn sour. They realize that as a decent person, they commanded no respect. This causes them to turn from lives of decency to more scumbaggery ways. These new, harder, cynical people point and laugh at the group they once were, and the seeds of corruption are planted a second time.

The moral of this post is don't be a jerkish idiot.

I wrote this at 1:30 in the morning. This post may or may not make sense.

Peace out, readers.