It was a great performance from a great performer. Everyone was having fun, the teachers, the parents, and of course, the kids. And honestly? I was, too. Singing and half-dancing from my seat, completely caught up in the moment.
Somewhere between songs, I found myself wondering: who made this possible? Who had the influence, or the fortune, to bring someone like this to a school event?
The answer came soon enough.
But that same name came up again, in a very different story.
Another event, different organizers: other parents, just as willing, just as invested. They had ideas, energy, and every intention of making something memorable. But somehow, nothing was ever quite right. The paperwork wasn’t in order. The approval hadn’t gone through proper channels. The timing wasn’t ideal. Each obstacle arrived dressed as a legitimate concern.
The event didn’t go the way it was supposed to.
And the kids, who had been looking forward to it, who carried nothing into that day except excitement and the simple hope of being together, they were the ones who felt it the most. Not the parents. Not the organizers. The kids. The ones who had no part in any of it, who didn’t know what a proper channel was, who couldn’t spell authorization if you asked them to. They only knew that something that was supposed to feel warm and alive didn’t.
And that feeling stayed.
As if we, the adults, quietly took it from them.
That contrast stayed with me.
Because it pointed to something uncomfortable: the “I ran five miles, so I can eat the whole cake” logic. As if one good thing cancels out everything else. As if giving enough earns us the right to stop noticing the harm we cause.
Do good deeds erase damage?
Does generosity work like a balance sheet?
I don’t think it does. But a lot of us live like it does.
There’s a blind spot that comes with being generous. We see the giving. We feel the giving. People thank us for giving. And somewhere in that loop, the harm becomes invisible, especially to ourselves.
TLC once warned about people who chase waterfalls. Pushing past what’s enough, driven by something they can’t quite name. The tragedy isn’t just that they fall. It’s that they take others down with them. People who never wanted to be near the water in the first place.
Daniel Kahneman would probably call this a failure of reflection, the kind he describes in Thinking, Fast and Slow. When we believe we are good, we stop questioning ourselves. The feeling of virtue becomes the proof of virtue.
And that’s where the damage hides.
It’s not always malice. That would be easier to confront. It’s something quieter: a self-image so polished by good deeds that it can no longer reflect anything else.
Doing good is not a license to cause harm.
And if we’re honest…really honest…the question isn’t just what have I given? It’s also what does it cost?
And sometimes, if we’re willing to go even deeper, we have to ask why we give in the first place.
Because if somewhere underneath the generosity there’s a quiet hope that people will respect us more, admire us more, need us more, that’s not kindness. That’s a transaction with a prettier name. We tell ourselves we’re giving freely, but we’re keeping score in a different column, one that counts admiration instead of money.
The truth is simpler, and harder: respect was never something we could buy. It was never something we could perform our way into. Only kindness earns it. Only sincerity. Not the kind that arrives with an audience, but the kind that shows up quietly, asks nothing back, and leaves people better than it found them.
Because here’s what I’ve come to believe: generosity is not a personality. It’s a practice. And like any practice, it requires awareness, not just of what we’re putting in, but of what we’re leaving behind.
It’s easy to feel good about the good we do. But it’s harder, and more important: to ask whether the good we do is the whole story.
It’s harder, and far more important: to ask whether that’s the whole story.
So give. Generously, freely, without keeping score.
But also pause.
Look not only at what you made possible, but at what we made harder. Not just at the event that ran beautifully under our watch, but at the one that quietly fell apart without anyone powerful enough to defend it. The people who had to work twice as hard. At those who smiled through the frustration. At the kids who showed up with their whole hearts and went home confused.
Because doing good was never meant to be a spotlight.
Or a seat no one else can share.
Or a reason to stop paying attention.
The real measure of generosity isn’t what we give.
It’s what we leave intact.
Love,
Kirana
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