What We’re Owed
I read a fascinating (and very short — in case you’re intrigued and want to read it, too) book recently: Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson. There are zero spoilers in this post.
Two college acquaintances bump into each other at an airport during a flight delay. They’re hanging out in the first-class lounge, and one tells the other a story about how he saved a man’s life and everything that came after.
There are several questions that keep percolating up as you read the story: Can we live with ourselves if we don’t think we’re a good person? Who defines who is a good person? Do good people always do the same good thing, or are there dozens of good actions in the same situation? And is being good something we do over and over again, or can one really big good act define us? If we do one bad thing, does it erase the good?
Chewy questions. And I didn’t even get to the really deep ones because those would contain spoilers.
But my favourite was an unspoken question that came up early on in the story: Are we owed anything if we save someone’s life? If we say no, does the answer change if the person is rich and can afford to give a reward? If we say yes, does the answer change if the person is poor and cannot afford to give a reward? And then is it about the action (saving someone life) or who we save (rich person vs. poor person)?
What do you think?
2 comments
Coming from someone who saves lives for a living, No, you are not owed anything. Period. Being a Good Samaritan is part of being human. I do believe doing a good deed gives Divine Grace and good Karma. I don’t think one good deed/one bad deed changes everything, rather that it is how you have lived your life, the entirety of it, not by the number of good deeds someone has done (or not done.)
While I don’t think you’re owed anything for saving lives (another life saving career here!), I can understand not wanting to do it anymore if you’re spat upon by people you’re trying to save, or others around them. I think an awful lot of people either don’t think about how their actions impact others, or don’t care very much. Mostly, I think people in general aren’t that awesome, those in the life-saving professions included.