Do You Want To Be Good Or Be Praised?

Do You Want To Do Good Or Be Praised?

That is quite the question is it not? I listen to a lot of books, not as many as ‘d like, and read a few, again not as many as I’d like. And once in a while a quote just burrows into the deep into my psyche and sits there. Some are like a drill thrust into the earth opening a hole and others are like a seed that takes root and grows.

I do not yet know which one this phrase will be but I know it will stick with me.

I suspect a psychologist would find my connection to these phrases most interesting to dissect, but I digress.

“Do you want to be good or be praised?”

Being praised feels so very good doesn’t it? We want tp answer “be good” that’s the right answer isn’t it? The moral answer. We should not be swayed by something so inconsequential as praise. However if we look around we can see many people who will prioritize making others smile over telling them the truth.

I am an author, after all, and praise quite directly leads to a growth in my income so of course I want praise.

But do I want it more than good?

I think I want praise. I think this quote stabs into my mind the way it does because it pokes at an uncomfortable truth. At a vice or insecurity I’d rather not admit, not to myself and certainly not to you.

But what do I choose?

I choose good, or else I will ever try to. I can acknowledge my faults and vices, recognize them for the mistakes they are and choose to do the right thing. Being a good human, I am told, is about choice not desire and sometimes very rarely choice and desire align. If the good choice and your desire match you will be able to act with clean conscience but most of the time you will have to chose virtue or vice.

Today I am choosing virtue, and tomorrow I will struggle to do so again. I hope that when you are confronted with an uncomfortable truth that exposes your flaws you do not look away but instead recognize it for the enlightenment it is and use it to make yourself better.

Thank you for allowing me to wax poetic and God bless.

~S. Wallace