Lloyd Morgan

I recently surprised myself when I said the following during a conversation: “Life is too hectic to just sit down and enjoy it.” This stuck in my head as I’m not usually a pessimist and I seldom let things get on top of me: this sentence is riddled with cynicism and doubt.

Later that day I was going through old magazines and spotted an article with the title “21 Ways to an Easy Life” or something similar along those lines. This inspired me and some of the quotes stuck in my mind. Here is a selection:

• Appreciate what you have: “Think not on what you lack as much as on what you have.” – Greek proverb
• Remember to rest: “Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it, except sitting in a corner by myself with a book.” – Thomas � Kempis
• Be truthful: “The good I stand on is my trust and honesty.” – William Shakespeare
• Learn to laugh at yourself: “If I could present a gift to the next generation, it would be the ability for each individual to learn to laugh at him or herself.” – Charles Schulz
• Be kind: “Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than necessary?” – Sir James M Barrie
• Love people: “I tell you, the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” – Vincent van Gogh
• Finish what you’ve started: “Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.” – William James
• Forget what others think: “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition: oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.” – William Shakespeare
• Start something new: “Age is something that doesn’t matter, unless you are a cheese.” – Billie Burke
• Create happiness; Get rid of guilt; Love yourself; Cast off outworn beliefs; Stop hurrying; Trust yourself; Nourish your friendships

I was confused by “create happiness”. How does one create happiness? Then I realised: we can’t achieve happiness without the desire to do so in the first place. We must first allow ourselves to be happy before we can become happy.
I also learnt this weekend that a man called George Dawson realised that he was never too old to start something new: at 98 he decided to learn to read and write. Two years later he was a published author with “Life Is So Good”.
I also read a quote, the author forgotten, that was something along the lines of: “When lying on your death bed you won’t remember the cars you’ve owned or the stocks you sold, but you will remember those you’ve loved and those who loved you back.”

This morning I decided to have a browse over my 101 Things list: a collection of things that I would like to do at some point in my life - some important, some not so. I had a look at this list today because I realised that it has been a long time - a very long time - since I’ve done anything on the list.

There is one that I haven’t even started to complete and it struck me as quite strange that this is the case. It may even strike you as quite strange that it is even on the list. In the ‘Misc’ section, I have stated that I would like to do 365 anonymous favours… that’s one favour, done anonymously, for every day of the year.

I decided to do this when a few years back I read that humans are incapable of genuine charity. Now I cannot remember if I read this in a philosophy book, a journal or even just heard it in a passing conversation, but it definitely stuck in my head for a long time. Individualism, it seemed, was what humans strived for.

The argument that was put across was that all humans do all deeds for selfish reasons. Toys are bought for children to ‘shut them up’, favours are done so that one can be returned, charity donations and volunteer work is done in order to reap praise, admiration and gratitude of our peers and some even go as far as to say giving ones life for a loved one or a country is selfish as we know we shall be remembered long after we have died for the most ‘noble’ of deeds. It is also argued that we do this (sacrifice our life for another) in order to advance our genes – by sacrificing our own life for our children and extended family we are ensuring that our genes survive longer. We could also do this in a Biblical sense, saying that we do this so that we get an ‘easy’ pass into heaven.

I didn’t like to believe this, as I have always believed that, as many religions teach, altruism is a very important moral value, innate to human beings. This is why I decided to do 365 anonymous favours. I believed that if I did these favours, and nobody ever found out they were done by me, I would have no personal gain from doing them and thus not be selfish. In over a year since I wrote the list, I have done 0 of the 365 favours.

Is this because I know that I would gain no personal enjoyment from doing them and as such do not bother or is it that subconsciously I want people to know when I do a good deed so that I can get praised for doing so? I hope not, and plan on doing one of these soon enough.

I’m starting to think that if I now do an anonymous favour, will I get a bit of self-satisfaction from completing it? Will I be happy that I’ve now crossed off one of the favours and now only have 364 to go? Or will helping someone anonymously actually bring me pleasure, and will I prove the theory that we are all, deep down, selfish? If I do succeed, would proving that we are all altruistic rather than selfish be an achievement that would make me happy or proud and thus, in itself, proving the opposite?

Steve Kanga’s Liberalism FAQ has a great article on this entitled Spectrum One: Individualism vs. Altruism. I suggest you read it.