Being kind to others is good for your health

> This is accurate. More often than not, trying to do something good for others will end up making you feel like an idiot. For the person on the receiving end, you are a jackpot. Instead of being shown gratitude, you're likely to be exploited.

Helping others doesn’t mean you have to set yourself up to be a sucker. Which you kinda point out when you about volunteering. But IMHO in any space our own judgement is still required and essential.

Well, yes, no, and maybe.

It depends on the giver and on the receiver; and therefore how healthy the relationship/exchange is. Let me explain:

* if the receiver is a narcissist/sociopath, for starter they won't value the "gift" received, nothing will ever be enough, and they always seem to attract plenty fo givers

* if the giver had the disease to please whereas their own worth is depended on being told "good job" or similar, it will eventually deteriorate since in the mind of the giver, what they give will always be > what they receive and won't end well.

* Then there's victimhood chic, where people feel that they need help on everything 24/7 and becomes a co-dependent relationship between them and - slowly but steadily - the entire world; and rapidly reaches a point of impasse since the needs keep escalating and the help keep diminishing

Buddha had the 4-part solution:

1. Help yourself

2. Climb a mountain, tell nobody

3. More suffering is needed

4. The enemy is a wonderful teacher

That crosses into personal attack, which is not an effective way to advocate for kindness, and also not allowed on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This has been studied in game theory terms.

The best strategy seems to be to give people the benefit of the doubt initially, being kind and altruistic without reservation. But as soon as they don’t respond in kind, you update your strategy immediately and stop extending any generosity beyond baseline courtesy. The ball is in their court now. If they switch from selfishness to altruism, then you can match them. Otherwise, don’t let yourself be exploited.

I’ve found this approach has simplified many social decisions for me. Even things like whether to say hi to a neighbor passing on the sidewalk. I used to not always be sure of the best way to handle these situations. If you give a hearty greeting and are ignored, you feel lame and rejected. If you ignore them and it turns out they are friendly, they could see you as unfriendly, or they might also be on the fence, waiting to see what you do, and by ignoring them you miss out on establishing a friendship that could be valuable to both of you in the long run.

Now it’s easy: I say hi the first time I see someone and treat them warmly. If they aren’t friendly back, I don’t worry about it. I simply ignore them now unless they make an effort to change the dynamic (happens more than you might think, actually).

This way you don’t miss out on the good people, don’t sweat the bad/manipulative people, and remain flexible in case someone was just feeling shy or having a bad day. Game theory ftw!

The only issue that I have, is that so many people (in my industry/nation/orbit) mistake kindness for weakness.

I live in New York, which has a basic culture of "hyper aggressiveness." It isn't "rudeness," as so many people like to think of New Yorkers. They can be aggressively kind and generous. They are just aggressive.

I'm also in the tech industry, which seems to have a very aggressive and competitive culture.

It doesn't stop me from being kind and courteous, but it gets grating.

My experience is that, when someone mistakes courtesy for weakness, they start trying to "game" me. I put up with it for a bit, until they push too far.

Then the till gets slammed on their fingers.

They get very, very upset. Far more upset than if I had just disabused them early on.

I'm learning to enforce my boundaries earlier. It doesn't make me as popular, but it also prevents those "psycho freakouts."