Duty

"When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty." George Bernard Shaw

This is an interesting quote. I am not sure that it is necessarily "stupid" men who behave like that. I think that we have been told from day one that our duty is to do what other people, who are supposedly wiser than we are, tell us to do. We learn that it is our duty to make other people happy. In our society, we are expected to do what we are told to do, which is very often not what we want to do, or what is right for us.

When we do something we are ashamed of, it means that we are doing something that we don't agree with or feel good while doing it; that we don't think is a good idea, and are afraid other people will think it is not a good idea either. Sometimes our efforts to do what other people want and make them happy lead to situations where we compromise ourselves and do things that we really don't want to do. Other people can't possibly know what is best for us in any case so they frequently tell us to do things that are really not in our best interest. Things that make us feel ashamed of ourselves.

"When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty. We have been trained from the time we are born to be victims. To be controlled by someone else, whether it be parents, babysitters, teachers, the police, or the government. We learn that it is our duty to do what those other people want, to make them happy. So we do those things that we really don't want to do and know aren't good for us, in the name of duty. We have to come up with some excuse why we are doing what we don't want to do, so we say we are doing it out of duty.

But a wise man knows that the only duty he has is to himself. He doesn't always have to please other people; he was born to please himself. He knows that when he feels good about what he has done, then he will naturally feel better about other people too, and more inclined to help them in those ways they need to be helped. A wise man never does something he is ashamed of. That is never his duty.