A random act of kindness

For this post we were asked to do a random act of kindness and document it. Now a random act of kindness isn’t new to any of us. It doesn’t have to be a large thing, it can be the small daily things that we do like holding the door for the person behind us, picking up someone else’s trash, or giving to the homeless. I understand the motive behind random acts of kindness as well. As Martin Seligman “the father of modern positive psychology” put it: the highest level of enduring happiness comes from altruistic activities that are fun and done solely for the benefit of someone else. It gives us a greater sense of self, affecting us for days, and even weeks, after the event.

So why then do I refuse to do this post, and actively go out and do a random act of kindness and document the proof of my good deed? Well in short: because going out and doing a premeditated act of random kindness defeats the purpose. Virtue based ethics tells us the right action isn’t right within itself; it is right because of the reasons we’re doing it. Going out and doing this acts for points and a grade defiles the act itself. It’s no longer random and I hardly think it’s kind if we are doing it solely with the expectation of being rewarded. To back this thought up here’s a definition that was covered in class of authentic leadership. Authentic leaders act in accordance with one’s own values as opposed to acting simply to please others, attain reward, or avoid punishment through acting falsely. This blog asks us to do just that: act falsely in order to attain a reward and avoid punishment.

This class is about leadership and taking action based on our values. In the last blog post that I made I talked about moral mutinous, knowing the right thing but not doing it. My example was getting a false grade on a test that I didn’t deserve but I said nothing and kept the better grad fearing punishment. A fellow class mate called me out saying that she too had done this once, but the pain of being untrue to her wasn’t worth it and that in the future she always did the right thing regardless of the consequences.

That’s why I won’t be posting proof of my random acts of kindness even if it means losing points for me. It isn’t right and I won’t defile the act or myself by going out and doing a premeditated act of self-gratification then documenting my good deeds. Like I said this class is about leadership about knowing your values and living by them.