How to keep doing the right thing? | Hacker News Reader

How to keep doing the right thing?

31 pointsjuniorbnusc14 comments

I'm not religious.

I'm not a Puritan. I love OSHO books, I've read more than 30 of his books. I like relativism. I try to understand the diverse cultures and customs.

I know that I am not the right person, honest and sincere. Obviously, I have my prejudices, fears, traumas, envy, etc.

I know that right and wrong is very relative, timeless.

In the country where I live (Brazil), many people (majority?) Do not respect the laws of traffic, construction, betrayal, etc.

The level of social corruption is enormous.

I know this is normal all over the world. But at very different levels.

I know that the fear of being punished by law, or by people is a good reason, to continue (try?) To do the right thing.

But often, I do not find a reason, to continue to do the right thing (try?).

Doing right does not always cost a lot of money, effort, time, patience, etc. But sometimes, yes.

What motivates you to do the right thing?

Or, you should ask first:

What is right?

How to know or define what is right?

One of the biggest problems, is to feel like a sucker, loser. This feeling is what bothers me a lot.

Or should I ask, how can I not feel like a sucker, loser?

If you had to choose one person - a real person, or an imaginary one - to watch you through your whole life, and know everything you do and why you do it; not judging or disciplining you, but just being aware of your inner self ... who would that person be? Who would you choose, and why?

Would you choose someone you respect? Someone you would not wish to hurt or shame? Would it be someone who brings out the best in yourself? Would you want to earn their respect for yourself?

Would you choose someone who rates people as winners and losers, bosses and suckers? Someone who doesn't care how they make others feel, so long as they're the ones on top? Would you want to earn their approval as another winner on their level?

The choice you make will tell you where your self-respect lies. Look after your self-respect. Other things can disappear from your life, either temporarily or permanently: health, wealth, love, security, friends, luck, dignity, purpose, joy. They're not always in your control. But self-respect is in your own keeping. And it can be enough, by itself, to make you feel that life is still worth living, and that you're glad to be who you are.

Seek Joy. Seek the company of people you admire. You can seek their company through the internet, books and film as much as by actually meeting.

Who are your heroes? Try to keep them, and what's heroic about them, in mind. Recognise they are human too, though.

Ah, the deep questions are pestering you. Rest assured that this period is normal, in time it will work out by itself. In this state it seems that we need just one more tidbit of wisdom to resolve our doubts, the thing is: this wisdom must come from within, not from the outside.

I too, come from a corrupt country with similar problems (Mexico), and having experienced living in more developed countries I observe that the range of "wickedness" to "goodness" is much wider in our developing nations. It is true indeed that one can feel like a sucker when it's the cheaters, the liars, and the corrupt who apparently come out ahead in life. But it's all bullshit! How can a liar, a cheater, and a corrupt person find true love, his true passion, his true meaning?

These people do what they do because they are primates trying to impress other primates to get laid more. They do so not out of evil, but out of ignorance. The path of righteousness is one of truth, integrity and authenticity. The key to not feeling like a sucker is to accept everything life puts forward, and to seek justice only for others, not for yourself.

  The sage is kind to the kind.
  The wise sage is also kind to the unkind.
  Because the nature of the sage's being Is kindness.

Lao Tse

Find the people loving you, your mother and father best, or your siblings, parteners.

Know more about them, their expectation, theri desire, their fear, their confusion, their pain, try to make them happy, as much as you can, in any possible ways.

You should not care about too much about yourself, life on yourself is meanningless, people live together from early ages. First, you ought to make the people nearest to you happy, if you do good, then you can make more people happy.

This is the simplest way. I also have wonder about such kind of problems about right or wrong, meaning, life solution, religion, philosophy for a long time. I even went to be a buddhism monk for several years, but problems never disappear.

Now I accept that human are social annimal, so melding into the people near you, you will feel not like a sucker/loser. I understand the feeling very well. But it's difficult to change, I have pay great to have some kind of change in my life.

Remeber, doing the smallest thing with obvious meaning to people loving you and you love, is much more meaningful than doing hugest thing with little help.

That's my experience.

I think there are two fundamental questions: Is there such thing as right and wrong? And if so, how does one know what is right and what is wrong?

A commenter below says right and wrong are only human constructs, but that raises the question of "which humans?" Arthur Leff calls this the "grand sez who?" Is right and wrong a preference, as I might prefer meat to cheese? If so, then who's to say my preferences are more or less valid than anyone else's?

Most people act as if there is a right and wrong beyond preference. Public discourse is full of criticism of "wrong" behaviors and attitudes. Is it wrong to be racist (for example)? Is it wrong to dislike cheese? Are those two different? Why?

I think they are different, and I'd bet most people do, too. If right and wrong are merely human preferences, then no one's "right" is better than my "right." If right and wrong is a human construct we're just arguing about which cheese tastes better.

But I do believe that right and wrong exist, and I believe that God determines what is right and wrong. My motivation to do right and avoid wrong (not that I do it well) is to please God. I'd like to be the kind of man that pleases God. And that's enough for me.

To answer your original questions - the fundamental moral tenets of all the great world religions are pretty much the same (not to say all religions are the same or equally true, but the moral teachings are the same). Follow them.

Do it because it's right, and you're a person who does the right thing. You're not a loser if you're pleasing God.

Good luck to you!

> Is there such thing as right and wrong?

Yes.

> And if so, how does one know what is right and what is wrong?

It all boils down to life and death. Right is anything that promotes life, wrong is anything that brings death.

This usually translates to right being anything that brings pleasure, while wrong anything that causes pain. After all that's how the brain is wired.

On the other hand we are social creatures and sometimes there is conflict, something that is right for the individual maybe is wrong for the community. It is widely accepted that right of the many is greater than the right of the one, and hence we have the laws.

So yes, there is right and wrong, and they are very clearly defined.

The problem that the OP has, is that most individuals in his country do what is right for themselves but wrong for the many and hence OP feels like a sucker because she/he does what is wrong for herself/himself but right for the many.

But if we go back to the roots of right and wrong, if most of the people in the community choose to do the wrong thing, then doing the right thing is not doing the right thing anymore.

Confused? Let me give you an example. Let's say we have 10 persons locked in a room. Each day we give a stick of bread to a random person. The community has decided that every day they will share the bread among all of them, as it is the best for the community(nobody will die of starvation). In this case, when you get the bread it is very clear that the right thing to do is to share it.

Now what happens if the majority of the individuals in the room, don't do the right thing, and don't share the bread when they get it, but keep it for themselves?

If a person gets the bread is it right to keep it to herself/himself or to share it?

Surprisingly the right thing to do, both for the individual and for the community, is to keep it, as the community will not really benefit if that person starves to death.

Of course, something even better would be for that person to try to convince everybody to start sharing the bread again.

Honestly, I do the right thing(note: what I perceive in a given moment as the right thing) because I like being able to look at myself in the mirror every morning.

I do the right think for me. And quite often this right thing can be to go against rules, or my boss, because I feel a decision is not going to help my patients.

Because that to me is ultimately what matters - right, wrong, don't but how I feel, is true.

I don't care that other's get away with loads of crap and go unpunished. I was built with a conscience, some people were not. These latter characters may get away with it for most of their lives, they may not. But i'm not gonna worry about it, and just focus on what i'm doing, not worrying about what other people are doing.

You have to understand that little things make a difference. You don't have to be the next Julian Assange.

For example, who was the guy who convinced the WhatsApp folk to implement E2E encryption?

Small actions can have large, positive consequences.

To your last point, how not to feel like a sucker, I take a lot of quiet pride in my own ability to choose. Whether a moral choice is popular/respected or not, you at least have sovereignty over yourself--it's empowering to know that you make moral choices on your own, and that you have strength to choose what's "right" no matter what other forces might try to sway you.

knowing that right and wrong are only human constructs. All is permitted, but the rewards that come with being in the right are not tangible, only expressed through your faith. do right because you know its right, not because of the consequences or gain. good luck in that world. the fact that you can see above it all, means you are already above it.

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell

I'm a Christian (Latter-Day Saint) and also adhere to Buddhist precepts. I meditate two hours a day. I don't eat animals and regularly pick up litter in my neighborhood.

I do these things because I decided to be a good person. That's the kind of man I want to be and my actions make it reality. No matter what happens in the world around me, with God's help I'll always be a good person.

It's like the Zen saying about the mountain and the cloud. The blue mountain and the white cloud depend on each other, but the white cloud will always be the white cloud and the blue mountain will always be the blue mountain.

TL;DR: Don't let the world tell you who you are and how to act. Ask God for wisdom and let that be an anchor for you.

> I'm a Christian (Latter-Day Saint) and also adhere to Buddhist precepts. I meditate two hours a day. I don't eat animals and regularly pick up litter in my neighborhood.

Very interesting, especially in a world where many people view religious practices as entirely mutually exclusive. As a Buddhist myself, good on you for doing this. Things need not be as black and white as some believe.

For one thing, I am not entirely convinced right and wrong exist in any objective sense. The way I see it, to be able to define some things as good and some things bad, you have to accept that the good things are "better" than the bad things. I am not certain this is true. Is acting in anger better than acting in temperance? Is murder better than mercy? It all seems very situational to me, and by nature of being a theory, ethical schools of thought are general guidelines for a large percentage of situations. None of which can anticipate every situation, and any I want to adhere to must be perfect for each situation.

Instead, I focus on what I desire and not what is "right." I do what I want, as it were. But with that comes an obligation to know what I want. Self-reflection is key: what do I want most, what do I want now, are these things the same in this situation as opposed to my last situation, etc... It might seem a little self-centered, but I am the one affecting the world and I am the one person that can know my desires better than any other person. Plus, I don't think my have been anything incredibly un-altruistic yet. At the very least, it has done a lot to reduce the amount of regret I feel over my decisions (which is a start at least).

The Dalai Lama said the purpose of life is to be happy. It's not straightforward to figure out what that is, but it's worth trying.

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