Tales of the Talking Tiger

This sounds like good news, afterall, it was Jesus who first said “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31). Yet there can be very different motives for aiming to do good to others. The people I have been speaking with desire to live this way because by treating other people well, there is a greater likelihood they in turn will be treated well. It stands to reason that if you are nice to me, I will probably be nice to you. For them, it is essentially an insurance policy – some kind of guarantee of receiving good treatment from other people.

For this reason, I can understand why people might want to live this way. However, this approach fails as a ‘game plan’ for life when we examine the everyday (and not so everyday) injustices we all experience. The 6 million Jews who were murdered by Hitler may have been very good to those around them, but that did not improve the quality or length of their lives. Similarly, the more than 200,000 victims of genocide in Sudan are not helped in anyway by the good things that they do or have done in their lives, not to mention those who continue to be raped, go hungry, or have their land removed.

I’m sure you are acutely aware of the injustices that you have experienced, not to mention those close to you. These injustices – at work, in health, in relationships etc will happen to you regardless of how ‘good’ you might consider yourself to be.

Being good is an insurance policy that only covers you for very specific circumstances. Don’t get me wrong – the world is certainly a much better place for us all to live when we are good to each other. However, being good is a strategy that provides no guarantees for this life, and no hope for the life to come.