it’s damn lucky that for the kind of person who helps others a lot, the act of helping others is usually its own reward pretty much

because if helpful people expected to be recognized for their helpfulness, they’d be sorely disappointed

even among those of us who, in theory, WANT people to be charitable and helpful toward those less fortunate.

even people like that, when they gaze dismally around a world that’s going to shit and manage to take a moment to “look for the helpers,” their response isn’t ever “let’s hear it for this cool person helping others! a ray of sunshine in the midst of a really bad time!”

no, that gets said by some clickbait news article written by someone who doesn’t care one way or another.

and THEN, the people who actually kinda care? They reply, “shut UP shut up shut up! that is NOT heartwarming, they wouldn’t have to DO that if the people with POWER weren’t being ASSHOLES!”

which is 100% true, but really not that nice a thing to hear if you’re the person going out of your way to help people when no one else will? (at least, not if someone says it without even sparing one complete sentence to show gratitude for what you do?)

to be a helper is to realize that very few people will actually express sincere appreciation for you.

(Unless you help by Doing Violence against those who Deserve It. That’s the exception. That gets you very popular with people who Actually Care.)

(Unpopular with people who have the power to ruin your life, of course. But popular with the people who care.)

(Maybe that is the kind of help we need the most right now?)

(I dunno.)