Why Doing Good Can Sometimes Make You Enemies

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Over the course of my career, I have met thousands of people across countries, cultures, religions and political systems. One of the more puzzling lessons I have learnt about human nature, however, has little to do with economics or political science.

Over the course of my career, I have met thousands of people across countries, cultures, religions and political systems. One of the more puzzling lessons I have learnt about human nature, however, has little to do with economics or political science.

People can sometimes forgive those who have harmed them more easily than those who have helped them greatly. It sounds unfair, perhaps even ungrateful. When I was younger, I thought so too.

With age, I have come to see the matter differently. The problem is not necessarily the act of kindness itself. It is what that kindness can leave behind: gratitude, certainly, but sometimes also obligation, dependence, embarrassment and an uncomfortable sense of debt.

There is more than one kind of generosity

We speak of ‘doing good’ as though it were a single moral category. It is not.

Some people help because generosity is part of their character. They see someone in difficulty and instinctively reach out, with little calculation involved. Others regard charity as a religious duty, seeking their reward not in the gratitude of the recipient but in something beyond the human transaction.

For others, generosity is an ethical obligation: those with strength, wealth, knowledge or influence should use some of it to help those with less. Then there is reciprocity - I help you today; perhaps you will help me tomorrow. Much of civilised life rests on precisely such exchanges.

But generosity has a less attractive cousin. Sometimes people give to acquire influence, distributing favours, jobs, contracts, introductions or privileges while quietly accumulating a portfolio of human obligations.

Politics offers endless examples. Patronage is hardly a modern invention. The Ottoman ulufe - the regular payment made to soldiers and officials - could also become part of the machinery through which loyalty was maintained. Modern politics has merely developed more sophisticated versions of it.

Business is not immune either. Some executives prefer loyalty born of personal obligation to loyalty earned through good leadership. They assume that a person who owes them something will be easier to control.

Yet it rarely works for long. Loyalty purchased with gratitude is a fragile asset.

The invisible burden of receiving

We talk a great deal about the virtue of giving and much less about the difficulty of receiving. For a proud person, accepting help can be painful.

A financial debt is straightforward. It has a number, an interest rate and, usually, a maturity date. A debt of gratitude has none of these. How much gratitude is enough? How long should it last? And what happens if the giver later asks for something in return?

Some recipients remember an act of kindness for the rest of their lives. I have been fortunate to know many such people. Others say thank you and move on. But some distance themselves from the person who helped them because the relationship itself has become uncomfortable.

The benefactor has turned, however unintentionally, into a mirror reflecting a moment of weakness: a period when money was short, a career was in trouble, a door needed opening or life had simply gone badly.

One way to escape that uncomfortable feeling is to avoid the person who remembers. Another is to diminish them: their faults suddenly become more visible, their motives are questioned and their achievements discounted. Occasionally, gratitude mutates into resentment.

It is one of the stranger defence mechanisms of human nature: if the debt cannot easily be repaid, psychologically devalue the creditor.

That may help explain why doing someone a great favour does not always produce a great friend. Sometimes, it produces precisely the opposite.

Generosity needs boundaries

The wisest generous people I have known were rarely indiscriminate. They knew how to say no. They did not take responsibility for everybody else’s problems, nor did they confuse helping someone with permanently rescuing them.

That distinction matters.

A person who is repeatedly rescued does not necessarily become stronger. Sometimes they become dependent, and dependence creates expectation. Expectation becomes habit, while habit can eventually turn into entitlement.

Then something peculiar happens: 10 previous acts of generosity disappear from the ledger and the 11th favour, the one that was refused, becomes the only one that matters. Gratitude gives way to indignation.

The problem, therefore, is not always generosity. It can be generosity without boundaries.

Nations can make the same mistake

I have seen a version of this in international negotiations too. Governments make concessions in the hope of creating goodwill. The first is appreciated, the second welcomed and, by the third, concessions are beginning to be expected. By the fourth, what started as generosity risks being regarded as an acquired right.

Then, one day, the accommodating party says no - and suddenly it is accused of being unreasonable.

International relations are not friendships, of course. States have interests rather than emotions. Yet the underlying mechanism is surprisingly familiar: repeated concessions change the other side’s expectations.

The lesson applies equally to business negotiations and personal relationships: today’s favour can easily become tomorrow’s baseline.

Goodwill therefore requires judgement. It matters when you give, how much you give and to whom. Most importantly, it matters how you give without diminishing the dignity of the person receiving.

Does every good deed really get punished?

English has a wonderfully cynical expression: ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’

I would not elevate it into a law of life. Experience has shown me too much evidence to the contrary.

I have met people who remembered a teacher’s, friend’s, colleague’s, neighbour’s or even a stranger’s kindness decades later. Some acts of generosity survive in memory long after money, status and professional titles have disappeared.

Such people help preserve one’s faith in human nature. But good intentions alone are not enough. Kindness also requires judgement.

Otherwise, generosity can become dependency, help can become humiliation and gratitude can become an invisible burden.

Do good - and cast it into the sea

There is an old Turkish saying I increasingly appreciate:

‘İyilik yap, denize at; balık bilmezse Hâlık bilir.’

Literally: do good and cast it into the sea; if the fish do not know, the Creator will.

It is a remarkably sophisticated philosophy of generosity: do the good deed - and then stop auditing it.

Do not spend years checking who remembered, who thanked you, who remained loyal or who returned the favour. The moment we insist on repayment, even in gratitude, generosity begins to resemble a transaction.

‘I did this for you, therefore you owe me that’ is no longer quite an act of kindness. It is an invoice with an unspecified maturity date.

Yet the proverb should not be misunderstood. It does not mean giving endlessly to everyone, regardless of the circumstances or consequences. What should be thrown into the sea is the account book, not common sense.

Generosity still needs boundaries. Do not allow yourself to be exploited, create dependence or help in ways that strip another person of responsibility or dignity.

Think carefully before giving. But once you have given, resist keeping score.

Kindness has its own ethics

Age teaches us that generosity has not only a morality, but also a psychology - perhaps even an aesthetic.

The best form of kindness does not make another person dependent on us, diminish their self-respect or manufacture gratitude. It is not subsequently advertised to others.

And it never ends, years later, with the poisonous sentence: ‘If it hadn’t been for me, you would never have…’

Perhaps the most mature form of generosity is to give and then forget. Harder still is accepting that the recipient may forget too.

We are human. Of course we like gratitude. We like loyalty. We like to know that what we did mattered. But that cannot be the price attached to an act of kindness.

So I have arrived at a relatively simple rule: do not stop doing good, but do not try to save everyone either. Give intelligently and without humiliating. Do not purchase loyalty with generosity. Once the deed is done, close the ledger.

A good deed is not an investment. It has no interest rate, maturity date or guaranteed return.

Perhaps that is what our ancestors understood when they told us: do good - and cast it into the sea.

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Opinion Generosity Gratitude