Thứ Năm, 14 tháng 11, 2013

Favors

Caution: Don't relate yourself to this blog post for any reason. 99% chance is that I'm not talking about you. Though I do feel the need to say what needs to be said, I very much fear misunderstanding.

Recently, I watched the US political drama series "House of Cards" and was very impressed by what the main character, an ambitious Congressman, said: "I like it when people owe me a favor". Indeed, in the series, all the favors he'd done for people were returned to him very timely at the most critical moments.

I've done many people favors in the past, as they did for me. When people thank me nowadays, I've got what I thought is a good response without making people feel awkward: "I like to have people owe me a favor". Well, though I must admit the potential benefits, I don't think this reasoning was why I did people a favor in the first place. Nor when people do me favors normally. That is the nature of favors, at least it should be: One should not do favors out of expectation for returns.

However, I've been frustrated lately by some certain people whom I appreciated for their values, and whom I had tried my best to help constantly for a long period of time (say, months) when they needed. Well, nowadays even a greeting once in a while (read: years) seem difficult for them. It's as if everything is forgotten. Well, this seems to contradict my point earlier about expecting nothing in return. In fact, it does, as a part of me expects this friendship to be maintained, unless we had done something horrible to each other, which did not happen. This situation made me re-question many things about my philosophy and the nature of relationship between humans. Or is it simply time can make people forget everything?

Or, maybe I'm too nostalgic a person.