Thomas Jefferson, for his many, many faults, was a man of wise words.
Most people I observe don’t act as though all the world were watching. Sometimes they hardly act like they themselves are even watching where they place their own feet, let alone bothering to consider whether or not those around them are watching where they place their feet. Sometimes I doubt if Jefferson even followed his own advice, and I have to wonder if he acted as though all the world were watching him have sex with his slaves.
I doubt it.
But even in his probable hypocrisy, his words ring true. Do something as if the world were watching. I have an addition to make to that phrase, though. By all means, do things as though the world were watching you do them — but don’t expect the world to react. Your actions will not always make waves, nor should you always expect them to. You shouldn’t expect a reward when you do something that is in its most basic form the right thing to do, you know, you shouldn’t expect good things to happen to you just because you did something good yourself. It is for that reason that I don’t believe in karma.
Karma is in itself a selfish thing — “I’ll help this person out because it’ll come back to me in the future”. There’s nothing outwardly wrong about that ideal, but there’s a sort of sycophantic guilt in thinking that way. You help others to help yourself — however far down the line that help may be — even though you should simply be kind to others and help them as though you expect nothing, not even brownie points on St. Peter’s list of who gets in and who doesn’t.
Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching…but don’t expect applause.
The People Watcher 