I learnt an important lesson today, that one should not expect others to reciprocate kindness and care. No doubt Royce is one of the people who finds happiness in helping others, and perhaps so do I.

Perhaps I try to help too much, perhaps I just try to gain the acknowledgement of others. But, seriously. Am I asking too much when I hope that others do the same thing for me that I do for them? Just a simple example - Because of my injury I wasn't around for the History Lecture last Wednesday, but yet, no one even bothered to help me keep a copy of the notes.

Ok, I guess that not everyone is as helpful or as nice I would like to think of them of, and at the same time I'm pretty sure that everyone has their own worlds and friends. So some of you may say I'm just being over sensitive, or just being self-pitying.

But I believe that I have enough evidence, on my part at any rate, to just show how unappreicative people have become, or rather have always been. I'm not going to bitch about certain people or about things that happen, thats really not my style. But I'd rather draw out the fact that the line "Kindness begets kindness" is not always true. And at the same time, thanks to the inherently selfish nature of human beings, there exists in everyone the instinct to put your own interests at heart first. But there are those, those special few who don't. And ironically, those noble people come off worse in the events in their lives.

Another example - the chinese supervisor involved in the Nicoll Highway collapse. He gave up his life so as to notify the workers that there was danger. Other examples - the recent man who died trying to save two other people in danger (noting that due to their own wild spirits and stupidity put themselves into danger in the first place).
So the question at hand is, how exactly does one jusitfy the doing of good? I mean, since it will go unappreciated at the end of it, why bother? Why is there an inherent streak of goodness in some people that gives them the impetus to do humanitarian work? I'm quite sure that humanitarian work doesn't have the best job prospects and everything, but there are those that still partake in such activities. I mean, just look at the volunteer doctors at Doctors Without Borders. They work so hard for their medical degree, and yet they volunteer their free time to go down to the third world countries and treat the widespread diseases.

Perhaps I try too hard. I think I do. But I still do it anyway.

Another quote -
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)