No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

I have had several people this week come to me to ask, "what's up with that?" This question is a new phenomenon caused by the release of my book. You see, when you write a book called "Why Normal People Do Some Crazy Things," everyone expects answers about the crazy things they experience in their day. It is also a test along the lines of, "Okay Mr. Big Shot Smart Guy, explain this..." I actually enjoy it because it tests the range of my "Fundamentals." So this week was interesting because I got a couple of similar stories that involved friends who gave another friend something nice and got blasted shortly afterward by that same friend with something negative about the gift. One story was: friend number one needed money badly so friend number two gave her a portion of her dog walking job and let her keep the money. Friend number two called her back a couple of days later and blasted her about the inconvenience she had caused her because the dog walking job forced her to miss an event she wanted to attend. "I'll never dog walk for you again," she said hissing angrily. Wow! Friend number one gave her the job to help her out and that is the response she gets? This friend (actually a "frienemy") has done similar things like this in the past and this was the last straw for friend number one.

Second story: Friend number one gives another friend a barely worn $1,000 suit he had just grown out of . They were of similar build and as it was custom made to begin with, it needed only slight alterations to make it a perfect fit. Friend number two upon trying it on loved the suit but angrily protested the alterations: "Don't you realize the most expensive part of a suit is the alterations? Forget it!" Whatever that means, it didn't even make sense. He was just livid at the suggestion that he would have to spend maybe $80 to own a like-new custom $1,000 suit.

Wow again. What is going on here? The answer to this is simple and something generous people deal with often. When someone is generous by nature they are always looking to do things for other people. These are the rare people in our society, very low percentage in relation to the population at large. Generous people by nature are also recognized by those around them as just that, generous in spirit. This causes a resentment factor in people not generous in nature---people having low esteem. Low esteem people are rarely generous because they are usually angry at how the world/people/job/life screws them all the time. They never feel they have enough in the first place so they never feel they have enough to give something to others. The low esteem folks now are angry at the generous people because in their heart they know they are not like them and cannot be generous themselves so they have to try to denigrate what the generous people are giving or doing for others in order to lessen the "goodness" of the act. It is as if they are saying, "Since I do not do things for others like you do, I will belittle your act of kindness in any way I can." They may take the offered gift, but they will belittle it in some way. That way, you see, the act doesn't "count," therefore "you are no better than I am" (who doesn't give at all).

I once bought several friends a dinner at a nice restaurant and afterward several gave glowing praise and thanks. One friend was initially silent and later interrupted the praise with, "I don't know why you all make such a big deal about the dinner, he just bought it for us to show off." There was stunned silence. I could not believe he had said it at all, let alone so sneeringly angry in tone. That was my first taste of this issue as I had never noticed it before.

Years later I experienced this kind of reaction more and more, both from this friend and others. I realized it was the adult equivalent of a school child destroying something someone else had received praise for. We often see siblings do this when a parent praises one over the other. The low esteem person has to destroy or belittle the object of praise.

So for those of you out there trying to simply be kind to another, remember, no good deed goes unpunished (if a low esteem person can get their hands or words on it), and just keep doing your good works. We don't do it for praise or thanks anyway...well maybe we do sometimes...but just keep on doing it, and let the acts speak for themselves.

(Whispering) Also, you can put in your back pocket the knowledge that generosity is a sign of high esteem. Happy giving.