Do Good for Good

_{Photo by Àlex Rodriguez}

For quite sometime now, I’ve always believed that if you do good then you should expect nothing less than good in return. But then life has thought me that that isn’t always the case, I guess that’s why they call life the best teacher.

Now, I only do good because I want to and I do it without expecting anything in return, that way I don’t get disappointed and if someone behaves in a certain unexpected way towards me, I won’t be that much surprised like I would have been few years ago. I say this because of an experienced I had some years ago, an experience that I had forgotten until a friend of mine reminded me of it today.

This friend of mine sat next to me for almost thirty minutes and all he did throughout that time was lament. Apparently, he had a friend who was almost like a brother to him. They both did almost everything together. If one of them was broke and the other had some little food left, they both would eat it together, that was how strong their bond was or that was what he thought until recently when something happened.

This other friend of his had recently gotten this huge amount of money and was busy partying and going to places with people who weren’t his friend when he had nothing, people who clearly were there to just spend all of his cash and then leave him dry. The sad part of it all was that he was doing all of this without the one person who was there for him when he had nothing and now his friend was feeling betrayed.

After he was done lamenting, I just looked at him and told him that this is life and if you want to live long, you have to stop expecting too much from people. I spoke to him at length because I’ve been in the same situation myself before. I told him that the money wasn’t him and the last thing he should feel is entitled because though he might have helped his friend when he had nothing, his friend on the other hand wasn’t obligated to help him now that everything seem to be going well for him.

I knew he wasn’t satisfied with my response but he saw some sense in it and had no choice but to accepte it. “Well, I guess that’s life” he had said before walking away.