Be a bit Buddhist, bro

 
Have you ever thought, about a Christian, “Well that’s not very Christian,” about something they did?

No? Just me then.

When I know someone is a proper Christian who believes in God and everything, I expect them to always turn the other cheek / be a good Samaritan / not covet their neighbour’s ox. And I’m disappointed when they turn out to be as craven, selfish and flawed as the rest of us.

I mention this apropos of nothing, except: I work in an agency that specialises in fundraising. For people who work for charities.

And yet it never (particularly) occurs to me to expect everyone around me to be charitable types. Which is rather a shame really – that I don’t expect us to practice what we preach.

Yes, I have a few direct debits to various good causes. But is that being charitable?

Yes, one of the ‘begging letters’ I write will raise many more times the money than most people will donate in their lifetime. But that’s not being charitable either. It’s just being amazingly brilliant at my job.

Sadly I’m not building up to much of an epiphany here.

But I do know this. I shouldn’t do my job as if it’s pure fluke that it happens to be for charities. As if I might just as easily been working for companies flogging fags / booze / child labour-made trainers.

It isn’t, quite literally, good enough.

I’m not saying people who work for charities don’t care about the cause they work for – many do, passionately.

But are we charitable / humanitarian in the wider sense? Are we kind and giving and charitable to one another?

I’m not advocating some happy clappy kibbutz where everyone’s super-nice at the expense of getting things done.

But maybe it’s possible for us to be top-notch gifted professionals without behaving like we’re just working in an office the same as every other. Without treating each other with less thought and consideration than those we’re supporting.

Maybe we can remember that charity begins at home.

Maybe we can remember to be charitable to each other. More than you'd expect from people, say, who work for an insurance company. (They can just concentrate on behaving in a very risk averse way.)

I bet if everyone involved in working for charities was a bit more Dalai Lama about the way they interacted with each other, it’d mean better work.

And you’d get great people, from dozens of other sectors, desperate to join something where they really felt part of something gooood. 

Rather than, as can be the case, part of something bad that just happens to do good.