The World Won’t Treat You Fairly Just Because You Are Good

A question first. Why are you kind to your fellows? Is it because you want them to also show kindness towards you? I am sorry to burst your bubble because people won’t necessarily be good to you because you are also good to them. So should you stop doing good things and being kind because it doesn’t guarantee you will have a good life? No! Let me share a story with you.

There is this acquaintance of mine (let’s call him David) who is way older than I, so he is like an elder brother to me. David used to work as a top manager in one of the biggest companies here in my country. He had a group of friends that he helps secure jobs for, and help them with employment, and also with anything he can. Generally, David was a really kind person. He actually thought me the value of money and how to give to others freely. But guess what? He had to resign from is company because on of his friends told the company about how he helps his friends and family by giving them jobs from the company. Apparently, the company has a “No Family and friends” policy. That is an employee of the company shouldn’t sign out jobs to people he knows in other not to breed corruption in the company. So when the company found out about it, they decided to punish David, and he had to leave.

You wouldn’t have thought that David’s friend would do something like that right? Even though all David tried to do was help and be kind. So was the world fair to him? I doubt that. All his efforts at trying to make others successful caused his downfall. But one thing to note is that it is better to be good than to be a bad person, because David is currently doing fine now and actually successful.

Actually, This notion is not a new one. If a doctor treats her patients kindly, will they show kindness towards her? If a construction worker helps another fix and damage on his house, will that person fix any damage he causes? No, you will tell yourself. People won’t treat me well just because I treat them well. The world doesn’t work like that. You’ve been taught this since the time you understood life. It is not true though. Here is the thing: you will get to a stage in your life where you may need help from someone. It may be during school, or maybe if things go wrong in your business, or when you lose your job. So it is better to be kind to those around you than for you not to be. The scary thing is that someone who helped you recently could become a victim as well and will be the one to reach out to you for help so are you going to help that person?

The world won’t treat you fairly just because you are good. I have learned this the hard way. I never thought that being kind to everyone would bring me rewards. Well, that is not exactly true. It did bring me rewards. Everyone was simply nice to me. But it never brought me anything in return — no investment, no recognition, no help when I needed it most, no sales, no leads, and no real growth for my business.

One of the most frustrating parts about being a nice person is that you don’t necessarily get rewarded for being decent. Sometimes people will be rude to you even if you extend kindness to them. On the flip side of this, it’s easy to give someone the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are good because of how they’re acting. The fact is, not all good people are nice and not everyone who is nice is automatically a good person.

Conclusively, the world will treat you like it treats everyone else, so being good doesn’t mean you’d be protected from the harsh things the world throw at everyone, but this shouldn’t discourage you. It is indeed better to be good and kind to others than to be rude to them, because there’s a higher probability that the world will be good you for being good, than good to you for being bad.