Doing the right thing

Whilst I was walking the dog the other day, I got to thinking about my actions in this life. I thought about things that had happened, comments that people had made to me in response to actions I had made, usually small and inconsequential.

After some thought and some distance with the dog (a longer walk that day), I came to the conclusion, that more often than not, I do manage to do the right thing. However, I also came to the conclusion that I may, more often than not, do the right thing, but could not say with all honesty that it was for the right reason.

So off on more parallels of thought. Why do I do the right thing for the wrong reason. Fear is a big motivator - fear of consequences, of what people will think or say and fear of rejection for inappropriate actions. The scary thing is that I can suffer these responses from really small and inconsequential actions. Having come to that conclusion, I stopped that train of thought before I began examining some of my bigger actions and whether the right thing was done for the right reason there.

Which brought me to another tangent. Is doing the right thing for the wrong reason, better than doing the wrong thing, regardless of whether it’s the right or wrong reason? I decided yes, but conditionally. In the spirit of always wanting to become a better person, I decided always try to do the right thing, but to try and work on the reason, with God’s help, so that between us we can make change happen. The result I hope for being that as many of my actions as possible are the right thing for the right reason.

What do you think? Is it OK to do the right thing for the wrong reason?

Michelle