The Recipe for Goodness

Doing good is something like making a cake.  A cake isn’t much of a cake if one of its ingredients is missing or in the wrong proportion.  Imagine a cake with too much or too little water, sugar, flour, baking soda, egg or flavoring.  Similarly, an attempt to do good won't turn out well if any of its ingredients are missing or in the wrong proportion.  For the sake of simplicity let’s say that goodness has five ingredients: power, understanding, sensitivity to the details of the current situation, caring and timing.  Imagine a person with lots of power but with very little understanding.  They are likely to do harm.  Or imagine another person who cares deeply about others but has little power.  They feel compassion for others but are unable to do much good because they lack the power.  They might even suffer inwardly from their inability to help.

Over time, I’ve noticed that most people tend to prefer power over caring and sensitivity.  In other words, they like sugar, but they find the flour boring and the baking soda bitter.  Or they read for entertainment, which is like consuming the flavoring.  Or they are in a hurry to do good, to “make a splash,” and so they underbake the cake.  For every handful of cake recipes that work, there are thousands of wrong combinations.  And there are lots of people who aren’t interested in goodness at all; they want the sugar, the power, for selfish purposes.

All Around is a result of over sixteen years of thought, action and analysis.  It’s carefully designed to help people create good cakes.  One part of the design is the Discussion & Action format.  Another important part is Sounding Board; and a third is a support structure, either a one-to-one Buddy System or the Goal & Growth group.  Our wish is that you follow the design of the program as closely as possible, especially as you begin.  Later, after you have baked some “cakes,” you'll have the experience that will allow you to experiment intelligently.  Having said this, we predict five kinds of web site readers:

Those who only want to make off with as much sugar (power) as possible.  They will eventually harm themselves and others if they have not developed the sensitivity and self-control to use the power wisely.

Those who just read for entertainment, and rarely apply anything that they read.  They will get the "smell" of the cake but not the nutrition.

Those who feel that they already know enough about goodness and how to do good.  We cannot predict whether they will do more harm or more good.  We recommend that they read a short story to help them realize that their efforts to do good can be wasted or backfire horribly.

Some people will mostly follow the instructions for using the program, but will cut corners, whether out of a hankering for sugar and flavor, or for an immature desire to hurry the process.  They will do a mixture of harm and watered-down good,and I can’t say which will predominate.

Some people will follow the instructions and design of the program.  Over time, they will probably do much more good than otherwise.

Who are the people who want power?  I'm not talking about exceptionally ambitious or greedy people.  I mean people like you and me who have a tendency to want to make things happen without making sure it's the best time to make things happen, the best way to make things happen, and the right people with the right preparation to be recipients of your good actions.  

That's why in All Around we don't want you to ask questions like "What is a good use of your time?"  We want you to ask yourself questions like "Is there a better use of my time than what I usually do?" or "Is this the best, most loving use of my time and resources?"   Asking yourself these questions and then giving yourself time to think can increase the good that you a lot; but doing these things along with reflection and discussion of these program materials can increase the good that you do many times over.  The increase is like the difference between grinding five pounds of wheat into flour versus planting the wheat and getting 30, 70 or 100 bushels of wheat.  Like baking a cake, farming or nearly anything else, goodness can be increased through learning concepts and methods.