Moral dessert

I want to talk about “Moral dessert” as it was called on the show The Good Place, which is basically the reward you expect on doing or being good. This thing has changed so much for me. The show talks about why Moral dessert is a bad thing, some of you may not agree but I don’t really care about that.

Disclaimer: its kind of related to religion but keep yourself calm and read this carefully.

Most of us have been taught about the afterlife and the way to get into the good place in the afterlife is by doing good. And if you do bad, you end up in the bad place. But here’s the thing, if you’re doing good because you expect a reward for it, how does that make YOU a good person? For example, if you donate money to charity its only because its a good deed, helping people in need is a good deed and if you can afford to give charity and you dont do it, then it makes you a bad person? Correct? No. Because if we weren’t taught about good deeds and the afterlife maybe we wouldn’t have been so nice to others.. maybe.

You should be selfless and help others simply because they need help, not because doing so will reward you in the afterlife. The show highlights that this woman gets into the bad place even though she had done so many good deeds, she is a philanthropist. Why? Because her personal motives were compromised. She did all that because she wanted to go into the good place.

Now this makes me question my entire 18 years of existence to being a nice person towards people who need help, am I really a good person or somehow, doing things for “sawaab” became a habit that even when I dont think about it, indirectly I am only being nice because I seek peace in the afterlife? I don’t know, but what I do know for sure is, since that tv show raised this philosophy, I have forgotten about the afterlife, and sawab and all the religious aspects of being a good person.

Today I am a good person because of ethics and my personal moral values and principles.