A good deed's reward
Today I realized how difficult it is to be a prof. Well it was a partial taste, a sort of sip from a punch bowl, but poignant none the less. Since I was volunteered as class "president" (aka the teacher's utusan) it was also my responsibility to audit the grades before the professor submits them to the College Secretary. I started at about 11:30 and finished at a little past 3:00pm. That's 3.5 hours of going through each quiz, recit card, and final exam to check if the summation of scores was correct.
While recomputing the grades of my classmates, I was also bombarded by text messages, calls, IMs, and emails. DO YOU KNOW HOW STRESSFUL THAT IS? In the middle of computing, my phone would vibrate, distracting me and making me lose count. And then if there's a discrepancy you have to check and check all over again so that you know you saw things right and your professor is the one in the wrong. And then there's the unavoidable moral dilemma moment that comes with these fiduciary tasks. My professor made an error and gave a higher score than the actual one. The point difference was substantial enough to lower him one step. Sometimes I question my principles about truth being an absolute. Well, the choice was made easier by the fact that in another grade component my professor made a mistake and gave him substantially less than he deserved. End result: no change of grade = no moral dilemma.
Why am I bitching about this? Other than the fact that it really is bitch fit worthy to any person who supposedly should be on sembreak, it's because one of my classmates told me that, at the risk of getting a lower grade, she was coming forward to admit that there was a mistake in the computation of her grade. I told her there was none and that the grade I announced was the corrected one but the computation was the old one. She then posts her status on FB saying... "I did the right thing at the risk of losing... and came out a winner. God truly rewards those who do what is right no matter what. :) Thank you, Lord."
THAT IS ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT! Who do you think was checking everyone's grades and doing all the above mentioned activities? Doesn't that count as doing good? And what did I get? Stress during my sembreak, a headache, 3.5 hours of my life lost, and a missed opportunity to go to work today and earn some money. Did anyone even so much as thank me? Nope, none, nada. Doing the right thing does not have any pecuniary value. It will not be rewarded by something else - at least not something earthly like a grade. Even God knows that. Let us not delude ourselves into thinking that doing the right thing will help us move forward in this world. More often than not it will not. Perpetuating this naive and juvenile fantasy that doing the right thing will be rewarded only leads to disappointment. It terms of economic and psychological incentives, making people believe in that system will make less people do good in the long run. Being disappointed will make them think that doing good is not worth it at all. Although I've been bitching all this time, that is not what I am actually saying.
The truth is doing good is its own reward. To say otherwise would be living in a state of denial. It is the act of risking being a loser that makes you a winner. Regardless of how things turned out, you would have been a winner anyway despite getting a lower grade. Getting the grade that you deserve doesn't make you a loser. And God's reward? It is not the grade that you deserve or anything else you get in this world after doing something good. God's reward for your goodness is probably something more profound than anything you and I could ever imagine.
While recomputing the grades of my classmates, I was also bombarded by text messages, calls, IMs, and emails. DO YOU KNOW HOW STRESSFUL THAT IS? In the middle of computing, my phone would vibrate, distracting me and making me lose count. And then if there's a discrepancy you have to check and check all over again so that you know you saw things right and your professor is the one in the wrong. And then there's the unavoidable moral dilemma moment that comes with these fiduciary tasks. My professor made an error and gave a higher score than the actual one. The point difference was substantial enough to lower him one step. Sometimes I question my principles about truth being an absolute. Well, the choice was made easier by the fact that in another grade component my professor made a mistake and gave him substantially less than he deserved. End result: no change of grade = no moral dilemma.
Why am I bitching about this? Other than the fact that it really is bitch fit worthy to any person who supposedly should be on sembreak, it's because one of my classmates told me that, at the risk of getting a lower grade, she was coming forward to admit that there was a mistake in the computation of her grade. I told her there was none and that the grade I announced was the corrected one but the computation was the old one. She then posts her status on FB saying... "I did the right thing at the risk of losing... and came out a winner. God truly rewards those who do what is right no matter what. :) Thank you, Lord."
THAT IS ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT! Who do you think was checking everyone's grades and doing all the above mentioned activities? Doesn't that count as doing good? And what did I get? Stress during my sembreak, a headache, 3.5 hours of my life lost, and a missed opportunity to go to work today and earn some money. Did anyone even so much as thank me? Nope, none, nada. Doing the right thing does not have any pecuniary value. It will not be rewarded by something else - at least not something earthly like a grade. Even God knows that. Let us not delude ourselves into thinking that doing the right thing will help us move forward in this world. More often than not it will not. Perpetuating this naive and juvenile fantasy that doing the right thing will be rewarded only leads to disappointment. It terms of economic and psychological incentives, making people believe in that system will make less people do good in the long run. Being disappointed will make them think that doing good is not worth it at all. Although I've been bitching all this time, that is not what I am actually saying.
The truth is doing good is its own reward. To say otherwise would be living in a state of denial. It is the act of risking being a loser that makes you a winner. Regardless of how things turned out, you would have been a winner anyway despite getting a lower grade. Getting the grade that you deserve doesn't make you a loser. And God's reward? It is not the grade that you deserve or anything else you get in this world after doing something good. God's reward for your goodness is probably something more profound than anything you and I could ever imagine.