Tag: Philosophy

Your Unhealthy Opinion

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity Guy1 Comment

“You always own the option of having no opinion.” – Marcus Aurelias

“Can you believe this?”

The question startled me from my own thoughts – I don’t remember what I was thinking about because of the interruption, but I do remember that I was enjoying my thoughts. So, I started this interaction from a grumpy place.

“Believe what?” I asked tersely.

“What this politician said. They are only looking after their own interest and don’t care about anyone else. This guy is a real jerk.”

Honestly, I don’t even remember which politician this conversation was about, but I do remember feeling like this other person was trying to draw me into the drama they were experiencing in their own mind.

I’m not a fan of drama, real or perceived. I am also not a fan of someone trying to recruit me to be a party to their drams, real of perceived. I think it is a waste of time and energy.

Now, sometimes I have felt like a jerk for that and maybe like I am being heartless. When that feeling comes up though I am reminded of Marcus Aurelias and his thoughts on opinions (see the above quote).

It’s healthy to care a great deal about some things, if you don’t that’s a problem. But you don’t have to care about everything. You can’t possibly. If you did it’s likely that at some stage you would give too much energy to something you can’t change and not enough energy to something that is truly important.

The beauty is that you get to choose what you care about and have an opinion of. If something is not in your top 3 or 5 or 10 priorities, remember, you don’t need an opinion.

Heaping Coals

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity Guy3 Comments

I grew up in a home of Christian faith, and I distinctly remember a part of the teaching about how to treat people who are against you, being your enemy. It said,

“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.”

I remember reading as an adult too, and, you’ve got to admit, that is a pretty weird statement. The image that this created in my mind was that of an antagonist and that God was actually suggesting to people who have enemies, ‘treat them nicely so that they get really angry and fume, that will be pretty funny’. I could never work that out.

I recently discovered that there was an Egyptian custom in which a person who had made an error and was wanting to make an amends, would carry a pan of coals on their head as a sign of their remorse, and the above teaching is likely to be in reference to that practice.

That changed some things for me. It turned an antagonistic philosophy and transformed it into a message of returning good for evil in the hope that someone who was actively out to harm you would be in a restored relationship with you. Now, I don’t know that repentance and restoration is a guaranteed outcome of giving food and drink to someone who hates you. There is always a risk in any act of generosity, especially one as this counter-intuitive (eye for eye, remember? That’s a whole other conversation…). But the possibility that you could bring something amazing out of something awful is worth it. Even if it only means that you don’t have to live with an active resentment towards the person, because the act of generosity towards them can shift your perspective.