VIR-III-0051
“I helped someone in a real way and never told a soul.”
You could have mentioned it, let it burnish your image a little, collected the quiet credit. You said nothing, the help was the point, not the story about the help. Generosity that seeks no audience is generosity in its purest form. Like the vine that produces grapes and asks for nothing, you did good and moved on.
Your Practice
- Notice you resisted the urge to be seen doing good. That restraint is the gift.
- Let the help stand alone, unattached to your reputation.
- Make anonymous good a regular practice, not a one-time event.
- Move on to the next act, like the vine. The doing is enough.
The Architects
“Know in your heart that you are a good person with good goals because that will carry over to your own self-confidence and your belief in your engineering abilities.”
Steve Wozniak, Interview with Jessica Livingston, Founders at Work (2007), closing advice-to-hackers answer