Railing On Unnecessarily

I confess to sometimes beating a point to death. Would you be kind enough to forgive me up front if do that with yesterday's blog?

Yesterday (read it here: Being Mercenary ) I spoke about it being all right to do good for less than ideal reasons. Fear of punishment is one of those lesser ideals. Yet I wonder: isn't that how most of us begin doing good anyway? Or at least, avoiding bad? Generally, we discipline our children by threats of time outs or early bedtimes if they don't behave. An unusually angelic child may not require such warnings. But most of them do, at least from time to time.

Then as adults, how often must we do something good (in the sense of that something being right and just) when we really would rather not? Say you borrow something from a friend or family member and lose or break it. You know you must repair or replace it. How often is that done out of pure goodwill, a perfect selflessness? My guess is rarely. We make things right because we're embarrassed about it. Or we feel bad or are angry at ourselves for our stupidity. Or simply because we see that an obligation exists and know we have to fulfil it. My question is, how often do we do it with joy in our hearts?

At the end of the day the important thing is that we do what we ought to do under given circumstances, and preferably for the best reasons. But doing what's right is the critical thing. The better impulses will grow from that.