Good or bad

Are you a good or a bad person? Try giving an honest answer…No, don’t give me that ‘we can’t judge ourselves’ crap. Answer it, as honest as you can. And give it some thought. Don’t just blurt out the answer for the sake of answering it... Got it? Ready with the answer? Now hold that thought…

When you do something good, let say for argument sake, helping a blind cross a road. Do you feel good about yourself? If you do, do you feel guilty for feeling that way? Should you feel guilty about feeling good over a good deed?

Why do you help that blind person in the first place? There could be a million reasons. Responsibility, sympathy, empathy. Which one? Or it could also be you don’t want to be seen as a bad person, or you won’t be able to stand the guilt if you don’t help. The guilt will kill you. Maybe you help because you were afraid God will punish you if you don’t. Is it wrong to do something good just because you are afraid of God’s punishments?

Something similar (or opposite, I’m confused) happened to me recently. I went to pasar malam without any particular purpose, just trying to calm myself. If I don’t calm myself, I might hurt someone (with my words, not physically… I just don’t do that). Being grumpy and moody. My family will be worried if I keep feeling down or whatever. I feel that walking around and watching other people will do me good. So I can say going to pasar malam was a good deed (can I?).

Anyway, I saw this one boy, maybe 5 or 6 years old. He was crying, loud. A classic case of a kid left behind by parents in a crowded place. Now I pity that kid because he was crying really hard. He was scared and angry at the same time. Scared of being alone and angry for being left behind. I really pitied him. And what did I do? Nothing. I ignored what happened and walked away.

Heartless? Maybe, but you see, I wanted to help the kid. Really, I do. But just as I about to walk over to him, my messed up brain start to think the way only a messed up brain do (refer to paragraph 2&3). Duh!!

There were so many people there. None of them did anything, they just watched. No one try to calm the kid down, talk to the kid or offered any help. They were just watching, same as me, and like me, I know they were all hoping that the kid’s parents will come back looking for their child. Just give it sometime and it will be alright. No need to be the centre of attraction, I don’t like being the centre of attraction.

I walked away partly because I don’t think there was much I can do. I don’t know who the parents were and from the looked of it the kid won’t be able to tell me either. I remember thinking “nothing bad going to happen to him, in a few minutes the parents will turn back and found their crying child”. So I walked away. 10 minutes later, I walked by the same place and there was no sign of the kids, I can’t hear any crying and everyone was busy with their own thing. So there, problem solved!

I guess what I’m trying to say here is if I saw a blind man trying to cross a road, I will not be the first one rushing to help him. Instead, I will wait and hope that others will. If, let say, in 5 minutes he is still hopelessly on the same side of the road, maybe then I will offer my help.

Like I said, I don’t like to be the centre of attention. For me, doing things like that will attract attention and I don’t want that. I get flattered way too easily. Just the thought of people seeing me doing nice things will wreck my good conscience (presume I have one). I read somewhere that feeling ‘riak’ (get a dictionary u lazy bum!), no matter how small, is a big sin. So being me, always looking for the easy way out, I tend to avoid all these things.

Messed up, I know. Maybe this is the work of the devil, doing their thing on me brilliantly. Whatever it is, this is me….

And to answer your curiosity, no, I don’t think I’m a good person. Mind you, I’m sure I’m not evil either…

How about u?