RE: Good intentions -- how much do they mean to you?
September 21, 2016 at 10:43 pm
(This post was last modified: September 21, 2016 at 10:51 pm by Thumpalumpacus.)
(July 23, 2016 at 3:36 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: To me good intentions mean an awful lot. There are so many shitty people in this world and it means the world to me when people mean well. And some people go far beyond good intentions in that they are just such incredibly compassionate and empathetic people. It all means so much to me. When I know someone cares and they show it, it makes me smile. Sometimes it really is the thought that counts
They help, sure. But I've heard, and given, enough well-intentioned words abandoned right after their utterance, recently enough, to know that all the good intentions in the world won't bring a person to do as they've promised.
Empathy is beautiful inside the moment, but it's the showing, as you mention, that tells the truth about a person. All the high-minded words don't mean a damned thing when they're only honored in the breach.
/cynic
(July 23, 2016 at 10:23 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: The message I'm getting from this is that good intentions are of course better than bad intentions. But if they are ever used to excuse negative behavior that probably devalues them. Would that be fair to say do you think?
... or worse yet, used as weapons -- "but didn't I say xxx?" Well, sure, you did, and that only makes your behavior thereafter even more questionable.
Don't give me Friday promises only to break them on Sunday. I'd rather you promise less and demonstrate more.
Anything else is quacking.
(July 23, 2016 at 10:50 am)CapnAwesome Wrote: I hate to sound like a dick, but they mean very little to me. If someone has good intentions but bad results, the results are the same. Almost everybody has good intentions, almost everybody thinks they are good people. Whether or not they actually are is different.
Something I've dealt with in my recovery is this very thing -- "I'm me, therefore I'm good". And we all want to think that, we all want to feel that we're good people, but the fact of the matter is that each and every one of us is a mixed bag of good and bad.
The upshot, to me, is that we must each examine our actions based not on intent only, but results as well.
I'm sure Torquemada thought he was a good guy ... yet he still broke innocents upon the wheel.
