Pay It Forward

[VanReal]

Sad I didn't read and respond to this earlier, but looks like most of my thoughts were put out there.  There are quite a few things on the list that would put me off, like someone grabbing my shopping cart to wipe it down or following me around the parking lot with an umbrella.  Or a stranger giving me a pizza...in the trash that would go.  I like the ones with old people though, we usually have a few in our neighborhood that could use some help, but I don't know many that would be comfortable with welcoming a stranger.

I'd like it if people could pay it forward simply by not being total pricks, like the jerk-off that was behind me blowing the horn behind me (and yelling "go bitch")today because I wouldn't dart out into traffic when he thought I should go.  Gotta love driving in Dallas.  Hope he liked how I put my car in park.

Oh wait, we were talking about being nice....uh oh, quite the learning curve.  

[jrosebud]

As for altuism, I'm on the pro side.  It's a tough issue to debate, IMHO.

Most times I try to be a realist, but my optomist peeks out from time-to-time  

[karadan]

I don't do a good deed to make myself feel good. Feeling good is just a nice consequence of doing a good deed.

[rlrose328]

I don't do a good deed to make myself feel good. Feeling good is just a nice consequence of doing a good deed.

This is how I feel as well.  I do a lot of little things... letting someone out onto the street from the school parking lot in the heavy traffic during morning commute.  Letting someone with only a few items go ahead of me at the supermarket.  I don't do these things because they make me feel good... I do them because it makes sense.  Keeping the traffic flow going.  It makes more sense to let someone go ahead of me if I'm going to take longer to put my groceries on the counter than it would take to ring them up.

After these two types of gestures, I don't necessarily feel good... I don't really feel anything.  It's just the way things should be.  It doesn't make me feel good personally to put food in the cat's bowl... it's just something I do every day.

It's the onery things I do that make me feel good... inconveniencing a jerk, for example.  Like the aforementioned traffic issue.  It's a cosmic righting of a wrong, so to speak.