doing the right thing when the right thing doesn’t seem to work

What we tell our kids:

Look for the good.
If you can’t find the good, BE the good.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

We say:

Kindness wins.
Prefer others above yourselves.
Love anyway.
Work for the good of others before yourself.
Forgive and forgive, as often as it requires.
Forgive when your brother keeps yanking your hair or stealing your Legos or leaving their t-shirts in your laundry basket.
Think of others first.

This is how the world should work.

Right actions should begat right results.

Sowing generosity should reap the same.

And, you know – sometimes it does.

Sometimes this exact formula produces kindness and forgiveness and thoughtfulness.

Some days the hard work earns the gold star and the diligent employee is promoted and stuff just lines up tidy.

Until it doesn’t.

Some days the complainer gets the larger slice of cake, the slacker gets the free pass, the cheater takes the prize.

This also happens.

This is also true.

Sometimes a situation is never made right. The guilty are released and the innocent suffer.

I wish this wasn’t so.

I’d like to deny it.

But I’ve watched it too many times.

I’ve tasted the bitters not intended for me.

I’ve cleaned up the messes I didn’t make and I’ve paid the bill for what I never purchased.

This is also life.

What does all this mean?

Do we stop teaching the right way because sometimes it doesn’t pan out?

Do we say anything goes and look out for number one and every man for himself because what difference does it make anyway?

Of course not.

We keep saying the right words, doing the next right thing, acting as we know we ought to act.

But we understand that we aren’t doing the right next thing for the perfect end result every time. We are doing the next right thing because it IS the next right thing.

We’re raising better informed children without false expectations.

Children who can grow up learning not to hope in the results we manipulate with our good behavior. Children who will become adults who do not assume that this plus that better equal a good life for me or else.

It’s not rose-colored. It’s not pessimistic either.

It’s actually full of all kinds of hope.

Hope rooted in both reality and in hard work. In right thoughts and in solid actions.

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