Thursday, July 8, 2010

do intentions matter?


im one of those people who dont question why people do good things, as long as someone less privileged benefited from their acts of kindness i dont care why they did what they did.

take companies who give checks to charities or donate in some other way to charities to get tax cuts, and people have the guts to criticise them. i dont care that they are only giving because they would get tax cuts, the point is:someone, somewhere benefited from them giving.what have you that is criticising them done?have you ever given to charity or helped someone along the way?
sometimes the answer is yes but still these companies donate millions of dollars to those charities;money that they obviously need.

recently, some random person helped me get through a lot of stuff that i was going through.we weren't close before this incident, he was just some white dude i used to talk to when i felt like it but he helped me with so much stuff and now we are pretty close. when i talked to my friend about this boy recently, he had the guts to say and i quote:'he was only helping you to get close to you'.
ummm...you are my friend right?you are already close to me so why didnt you help me?
i dont care why he did it, the fact is:he did it when you didnt.
as long as he didnt have any bad intentions or meant to hurt me by helping me then i dont care why he did it.

in nigeria, many people especially in the northern part believe that the prayers of a beggar is very strong, so they give a lot to beggars and stuff.
people criticise them a lot for giving just because they want the blessings that they will supposedly get by giving to these beggars.
do you think the beggar cares about the intentions of those who give him money?!
as long as they dont have any evil intentions, why should we care that they are only doing it for the 'blessings'?!

tonight, Lebron made an announcement on espn and he had a 1-hour special and he is donating all the money he made through ads and endorsements to children charities.
now, everyone is calling him narcissistic because he didnt go to team they wanted him to go to(thats a story for another day) but they are forgetting the millions of children that are going to benefit from this special.you can call him narcissistic all you want but bottom line is:he is making a difference.regardless of if he is doing it to make himself look good or if he is doing it to get more endorsements, fact of the matter is:do you think that the children that he is helping with this money cares why he is giving it to them?(he has written numerous checks to charities in the past btw).
a friend of mine had the guts to say that he didnt need to go through all that, that he could have just written them a check from his own personal account.
ummm...let me educate you:according to forbes list, Lebron made about $43m between june of last year and june of this year, according to estimates this special is going to rake in not less than $20m.is it realistic to ask someone to write a $20m check(half of his income) to a charity?that he is what?

lets face it.we are human beings and in as much as we hate to admit it, sometimes we need incentives to do good.in as much as we like to preach and pretend, the fact stil remains that if governments dont offer tax cuts when you donate to charity, 0.75 of these companies wouldnt give a dime!thats human nature.
am i saying its right?no.
but as far as im concerned as long as someone doesnt have evil intentions, the reason why he/she is doing something shouldnt matter as long as someone benefits from it.
and thats what I think!!

favourite fb comment: i wanted to drown all my problems but all those bastards could swim!

i can't sleep so pardon the way this was written, i just had an argument with my friend and just wanted to get this off by chest.
hope you have a good night and a good weekend.ciao.

19 comments:

Blogoratti said...

Totally feel you on this...humanity is all about helping each other out-it doesn't matter the motive behind it, as long as the person on the other end is not hurt. Sometimes we offer help to people-not because we want to, but because it is the right thing to do.
And in the end...it's people that helped us through our trying times that we remember the most.

Me said...

I know what you mean... If we aren't playing our part in bettering humanity, we have no right to criticize or judge the motivations of those who actually do. Kudos to LeBron... I'm not too knowledgeable about Basketball but I know well enough that he's one of the best!

Tega said...

I totally get you Leggy...as a matter of fact I had this same argument with someone recently but this was as regards as pastors should give out all the had even if they worked for their money and live their lives below standard because it was Christ-like.

I totally did not get that...Christ lived like that because God decided he'll be born into the family of a carpenter...If he was born wealthy who is to say he would leave his home totally becauses riches are a sin.

Anyway I'm sure ave totally digressed...Shs sha sha we shouldn't criticize especially when we're most prolly doing nothing and someone else is...publicly or not.

Have a great weekend babes

Anonymous said...

Well expressed, very well expressed.

doll (retired blogger) said...

i concur

P>S did you change your template?

TayneMent said...

I agree for the most part intentions don't matter save for few exceptions. In a case where someone is doing something to expect something in return or to gain control over someone then yea it matters but in the cases you mentioned yea it doesn't matter.

Nee Fe Mi said...

On this particular one, in the way you have expressed it, i agree with you a 100%. But like TM said there are of course circumstances where it does matter. E.g a guy being nice for sex/ to rape a woman

leggy said...

@neefemi, i said unless they have bad intentions.

Jennifer A. said...

"Sometimes we need incentives to do good." Couldn't have said it any better. I totally feel the truth in this post. Incentives are not necessary, but when they come they encourage us to do more good in the world. It's the human nature.

That being said, we should strive to do good, not because of incentives.

Fabulo-la said...

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."


Imagine someone did sth tht hurt you and then replied and said they had good intentions.'Bull-fucking-shit.
Whether u intended to, or you didnt, its only the outcome that matters.
IMO

Nee Fe Mi said...

@leggy - to a guy having sex may not be a bad intention and sometimes for really sad people neither is rape...which is why what fabulola said comes to place "the outcome"

leggy said...

@neefemi:ummm..i said beneficial for the person receiving the action and p.s:there is no place where rape is not a bad intention.
and i said as long as the person receiving the action benefits:isnt that the definition of outcome?
and outcome was my point in this whole post incase you didnt notice.

olusimeon said...

I totally get your point.. and i think we all pause to silently ponder on why someone does any good for us.. so we could quickly say no, before it starts looking like we owe them..
I'll say yes intentions do matter.. for the one doing the good..

NaijaScorpio said...

You are so right. What does it really matter as long as something good is coming out of it.

Miss Natural said...

It depends. I mostly agree with you that intentions do not matter and usually in the examples you mentioned. When you're the recipient of a good deed you dont usually ask or question the reason behind the deed except its obviously for bad intentions. I would qualify your statement and add, intentions do not usually matter to their recipients (especially as fabulola said, when they lead to bad outcomes). Intentions matter to other people apart from the recipient and God.
Other people would be...well take for example a fake evangelist. The only reason they might witness is to look like true Christians. That's the only intention behind their action and its a hypocritical intention. Now that matters, it matters to non christians and christians observing. That would be my example of the other people.

Long comment, hope I was able to express myself well. It's been ages leggy sha, hope your exams went well.

BSNC said...

I get your point and i agree with you. Like you they don't have bad intention, then its all for the greater good.

~Sirius~ said...

aaaah,

Totally feeling your points and post.

And that FB status had me cracking up on another level!!! what!

Unknown said...

motives matter a lot
to God
and to me!

Smart Aunt said...

Intentions do matter! Only it's hard to read someone's mind. So we are happy enough to see if the result was good. Because we can see the result and assess it. We cannot always know the intention.