Careful. I have a strong disagreement with this. Doing good requires doing good in the sense of doing the things that are high impact. Some of those things require personal loss or suffering but it’s not the personal loss or suffering that makes those things into good acts. Also there are many good things that you can do that require less suffering. Ideally we can get both but we shouldn’t glorify suffering at the expense of outcomes.
> Doing good requires doing good in the sense of doing the things that are high impact.
I strongly disagree with that definition. Holding the door for someone is doing good. Picking up a plastic bottle off the street and putting it in a recycle bin is doing good. Doing good does not need to be high impact, or to even directly impact anyone at all.
Well, I have never done good without some degree of sacrifice on my part.
And I thought through it in detail, taking your comment seriously.
Now, at times there is way more reward than sacrifice. And it may be very minor league, but it is there.
I agree with you completely in that the good is all about the target of the good, not our cost of action.
Not all good is high impact too. Just being a good human, holding doors, helping in small ways all add right up to impact the world we inhabit. Broad impact that is catchy. Everyone benefits.
It depends though. If someone grew up in a dense neighborhood then they might not care at all, or they even find the densification of a typical car centric sprawl a good thing :)
Great rant! I never really boiled it down to the bare nubs like that, but you are right.
I am going to share that basic idea around some. More people need to internalize it.
Having not done that is likely why people love stories about other people doing good.