Being Human

Last updated on May 18th, 2021 at 10:53 am

1. Describe a time when the content of your character was tested.

2. Write about a chance meeting that has stayed with you ever since.

— The Scintilla Project Day 6 prompts

When it comes to me, some people catch a case of “He’s too good to be true.” Too nice. Too gentlemanly. Too eager to help. He must be hiding something. He must be trying to get something from you. There’s no way he’s doing this from the goodness of his heart!

Somewhere along the line the standard for being human fell. We’ve become sceptical and expect everyone to try to stab us in the back at their earliest opportunity, so we harden ourselves pre-emptively, knowing that the other shoe must eventually drop. No one is out for your best interests. No one can succeed without you failing. There isn’t enough of anything for everyone to get a share.

But that’s simply not the case.

You Can Only Get Out of the World What You Put Into It

I’m of the mind that personal success and the success of my “competition” are not mutually exclusive. If another blogger and I choose to compete against each other, we might become very successful individually if we’re lucky—but if we work together, we increase the odds for our success, not to mention that we’ve both gained another potential 24 hours of effort per day apiece by having someone else to rely on in reaching a common goal.

Call it karma, call it cosmic balance, call it whatever you want—but the more you put into the world, the more of it you’ll get right back. Positive people will find others willing to help them reach their goals and take burdens off of their shoulders, while the negative ones will find the world consistently dumping right on their heads, and I’m sure that they’ll have a complaint to share about it, too!

But it’s simple math—the more people who’re willing to just give in and help others, the more positive examples we’ll have to learn from. In turn, those turn into more people who can potentially learn from these examples, and from there the cycle just repeats.

So why not try be an agent of good in a world of bad when it simply makes sense?

A Simple Question of Wrong and Right

I’ve been stabbed in the back before. I’ve had friends choose sides in battles that didn’t have me on them. I’ve had people lie to me, cheat me and steal from me—and after all that, I’d only ask them one question:

“Was it worth it?”

Was your short-term gain worth the hit to your reputation? Was the material wealth worth the relationships you severed to get it? The things we get through questionable means are rarely the ones we get to hang on to in the long run, so why play the dangerous game with fate?

That’s why every time someone questions my character—every time someone wants to hate and accuse me of rigging contests, befriending people for popularity or anything else that’s come my way in my life so far, I just remember who I am and what I do. I gotta do me and let haters be haters—may they one day see the light.