12th February 2003, 12:38 AM
Thank you LL! I know I make some incredibly cynical comments myself, but to be honest just giving up and saying "all I can do is help myself" is exactly what everyone on the whole planet is doing, so you are not helping by thinking like that! (That was exxageration to make my point, which is that the attitude of self-serving, regardless of whatever logic fuels it, is exactly the attitude that makes the world as bad as you think it is.) There's nothing wrong with helping people, even if they take advantage of it. You aren't doing this for yourself after all, you do it for them. Getting angry at the results is ego telling you that you should somehow be rewarded for it. Do some things here and there, "pass it forward", and occasionally teach a British person how to floss. That's really all you can do.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)