On Doing Good

Why am I here?  Why are all the staff members and interns of ADE here?  Is it because we see people we can help?  Or is it because we want to bring to fruition an image we have of ourselves as being good, helpful people?

I was recently reminded of an experience I had while raising money for the Democratic National Committee back in 2004.  When I got to one of the doors, the woman who answered asked me, “would you like to know why I’m voting for George Bush?”  I said “yes,” so she brought me into her house and showed me of a picture of her cousin, who was serving in Iraq.  She told me that he was liberating people and that Bush was doing good work overseas.  As she clung to her belief that her cousin was risking his life for something valuable, might she have prevented herself from seeing what was really going on?

It strikes me now, as I’m witnessing “development” work, that the same thing can happen in humanitarian efforts.  If people need very badly to believe they are doing something “good,” they may miss what’s actually going on around them and what affect they are actually having.  Put another way, if the only way we derive happiness is by fulfilling an image of ourselves as “good,” “helpful,” “selfless,” or “Christian,” we may fail to recognize when we are actually doing harm.  We may need so strongly to believe we are good, that we prevent ourselves from recognizing our own shortcomings and the sometimes negative effects of our work.  We may also make ourselves miserable.

I think we are all vulnerable to this possibility.  And I seek to constantly remind myself that our beliefs can either liberate us or make us slaves to our own minds.  And that the best way to help others is to seek true happiness and peace in our own hearts.