No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

This concept is a terrible one but is worth taking into mind.  When you do real well, or do something you consider “good”, or show off your amazing skills, or present something you have earned, you will almost always get some sort of punishment sent at you.  This is how human nature works.

Parenting Example

One great example of this type relates to good parenting.  Some of the best parents are not appreciated by their children for many years of their youth, until they one day realize how the great guidance they got placed them in a solid position.  Many children will do whatever they can to battle against the care that great parents try to provide, resisting help with creating a routine, and getting angry at rules that help protect them and protect their use of time.  This is counter-intuitive to most great parents, but they realize that the children will one day see the worth of their actions.  A child might slam their door one day, but the important point is that they figure out that their wrongdoing is to be corrected, and that they are lucky to have someone to help correct it.

Pointing Out Faults

Let’s say you are looking to help someone clear out a bad habit they have of getting angry and loud with people when things don’t go their way.  If you bring them a list of times they have performed this bad habit, present a routine for them to follow to be able to release their feelings in a calmer way, and encourage them to follow these, there is a good chance they will resist this directly or indirectly.  (Speaking of which, so much of society is indirect that it is a joke.  Instead of saying point #1 and point #2, we will dance around a topic because we want to ignore the real issue.)

Back to the example, there is a good chance the person will take offense to your telling them about their bad habit, and will think you are thinking about them as out of control whenever you are with them.  Your effort to help, in this case, can completely backfire.   You get all the negatives, until possibly many months later when the person internally realizes their problem.

Basketball Example

Another example I am more than glad to point out relates to my latest basketball injuries.  The last four times I have gotten hurt playing basketball, it has been because I beat the defender with my speed and he had to foul me hard to stop me from heading toward the basket and taking an easy shot.  I obviously will have to adjust my play style to avoid future injuries, but this example relates to the message of this piece.  It is easy to foul someone when you are not up to par as a player, but the difficulty lies in not punishing someone for doing something well.

When you do something great, someone somewhere will try to knock you back down.  This is because your show of skill represents your success, which in comparison to someone else, lessens their position or feeling of self-worth, and so they try to damage you in order to return things to as they were.  This is a normal lower-level response, and you have to get used to it if you are doing great things.

Also, remember that there is a potential scenario at play.  You may be competing somewhere below your level, and so it doesn’t make sense to push hard and receive the punishment.  If you are playing tennis against a 6th grader as an adult, playing hard will just make you look foolish.  In the same way, when battling against others lower than your experience or skill level, in any competition or walk of life, you want to take it easy and then return to those at your level.  There’s no use getting insulted or hurt or something of that type when you have nothing to gain if you win.

Tagged as: basketball, good, helping, parenting, punishment