Goodwill: An Essential Ingredient of Human life

Goodwill refers to an attitude which has Friendly, helpful, or cooperative feelings. We tend to help only those known to us as Relatives, Friends, Colleague and Neighbors. What about those around us... unknown and strangers, Trees and Plants, Animals, Birds and Insects. Do we care when they are in trouble or distress? Honestly, many of us ignore them as we mind our business only... No goodwill is shown to them.

There are several occasions of this sort that we come across in our everyday life. We will look into a few cases here.

1) Bus Travel: When a person wearing dirty clothes boards the bus, most of the passengers express displeasure and ask him to occupy a back seat. However, this is an incorrect way of treating a fellow human being. On the contrary, if the same person happens to be a friend, we make him sit near to us.

2) Accident case: Again, if the person involved in a road accident is known to you, all kinds of help will be rendered to him. Nevertheless, the opposite reaction comes if it is an unknown face.

3) Puppies: Sometimes we notice puppies standing in the middle of the road and screaming for their lost mother. Actually, these young ones are looking for a kind heart to help them with the care and feeding. Again, nobody is bothered about this tender life, and we just walk past them.

4) Birds: Many birds are fast becoming extinct from our world due to the selfishness of human beings. Take the case of the sparrows that are gradually disappearing from our neighborhood. People ignore when the sparrows are found in their region. We shall try to help these birds multiply in their population, by providing the grains, water, etc.

A real-life incident is narrated here below to understand the value of Goodwill.

One doctor waived the fees for cesarean delivery. Moreover, he gave away the medications free of cost. The baby's father is a poor peon in a local dairy, and the expenses were a huge sum for him. As the baby is a female, the doctor made it free, and intended to help the poor parents save money that in turn could be used for educating the young woman. The parents since deposited the money thus saved by the name of that girl. This happened in Gujarat state of India, where the sex ratio is skewed at 886 girls per 1000 boys. Sensing the social implications of this phenomenon, this doctor regularly contributes to the society in this manner.

So GOODWILL truly means showing compassion for those who badly need some care and attention: the help provided to such needy is actually the God's Will or Goodwill.

How come there are 7 billion people, yet we feel alone?

“Egoism, the desire to enjoy at the expense of others, is at the basis of our nature. Over the course of our lives, we constantly develop and grow. As a result, we find ourselves increasingly separated from each other, and in our time, we have reached the fact that we can no longer stand each other. We find ourselves becoming increasingly divided, isolated, detached and hateful of one another, and sink deeper into depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness and drug abuse. The growing ego separates us, and we feel that we are truly cut off from everyone and even from our very selves.

On the other hand, we also start feeling the opposite: that we increasingly depend on each other and cannot live without each other.

So how can we resolve this dilemma, where we find ourselves becoming increasingly interdependent, but at the same time, we hate and reject each other? How can we tie this problem into one?

We cannot do so in our current life. There is but a single solution: we need to rise from our current level of existence, where we all live with self-concern as our top priority, to a different level, where we prioritize the benefit of others, and positively connect to them. If we reach the understanding that our egoistic mode of existence is out of gas, and that we need to shift to a different state, opposite to the current one, then we will merit a harmonious existence in balance with nature, and no one will feel alone.”

(This is a reproduction of a post in Quora, based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.)