I heard an interesting story the other day while sharing in the usual ‘spiritual’ experience that happens during the weekend. One of the guys was telling this story about how strangely some people tend to interpret gratitude.
Apparently in a land far, far away, there lived a very normal, average kind of guy. Now this guy went about his daily life without harm to anyone and did his best to get along day to day.
One fine day (or not so fine day), a group of thieves decided to break into this guy’s house. Now these thieves were a really vicious sort of characters and the poor guy was pretty helpless to stop them.
For his good luck, a passerby who happened to see what was happening, decided to give him a helping hand and came to his rescue. He thrashed the thieves quite soundly and chased them away in style before restoring the house with all its contents to the poor average guy.
The average guy was really happy and very grateful to the passerby, but the Good Samaritan brushed off his thanks and claimed he was only doing his civic duty by coming to his rescue.
Once again everything was bright and sunny in the average guy’s life. But things were not to remain that way for too long.
After returning home after a tiring day at the office, the average guy was shocked to find that his precious home, that was saved by the Good Samaritan, was missing it’s roof!
While he was standing there speechless, guess who happens to pass by? The Good Samaritan of course (sort of expected that twist, didn’t you?). Seeing the average guy standing there the Good Samaritan asked him what seemed to be the problem, to which the average guy pointed out that someone, seemed to have stolen his roof.
The Good Samaritan laughed heartily at this and told the average guy that he was mistaken; after all, there were no more thieves in the area. They had all been chased away by him. Having thought about this, the average guy asked the Good Samaritan what he thought had happened then.
The Good Samaritan at once gave him an explanation. He said that he was a little short of money and had decided to sell the average guy’s roof in order to raise the money. The average guy was shocked at this explanation and asked the Good Samaritan why he thought he could sell his roof without asking about it first, and wasn’t that in fact an act of stealing?
A look of deep hurt crossed the Good Samaritan’s face immediately. This was soon followed with an expression of anger. In a very threatening voice he asked the average guy if he had so easily forgotten how when thieves broke into his house it was the good Samaritan who saved the day?
He went on to point out how, in his opinion, the average guy was an ungrateful ingrate. After all, how could the average guy find fault with him for selling his roof when the whole house was in fact saved by him?
The Good Samaritan walked away muttering under his breath about how people should learn to be more grateful to their saviours as the average guy gazed after him in shock.
So what do you think? Was the average guy in fact being ungrateful at pointing out how wrong it was for the Good Samaritan to steal his roof, or was he right in being upset about it?
TheKillRomeoProject 
January 22, 2010 at 8:53 am |
I feel there’s a distinct relation to some very real actual fact out there in terms of these so called good samaritans and the average guys.
Average guy is right all the way. Good deed or not. Discretion much GS?
Nice one.
January 22, 2010 at 9:00 am |
A roof over your head is a basic human right under the UN charter. So average guy can go to a UN human rights arbitrary and claim his roof back.
As there was a handshake involved (was there?) the good guy can claim this was a contract and he had a right to sell the roof.
BTW: Did he break it apart and sell it in pieces to many people or it was a one off sale?
I think the lesson to learn from this story is always bite the hand that feeds you before it comes back and gives you a SLAP!
January 22, 2010 at 9:44 am |
I think the lesson is, be careful of those who claim you owe them a debt of gratitude! 🙂
January 22, 2010 at 12:49 pm |
The bigger the debt the deeper you get f’cked?
January 23, 2010 at 2:25 am |
loved this post! 🙂
January 23, 2010 at 4:20 am |
It sometimes may appear intelligent to exagerate things to get more clarity:
If a person saved ur life, then do u ‘owe’ ur life to that person thereafter?
February 25, 2010 at 5:10 pm |
I think we all know the good samaritan is a little bitch. 😉 Moral of the story, kids, in the real world almost everything nice comes with a price.
January 3, 2011 at 4:54 am |
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January 11, 2013 at 10:05 am |
While he was standing there speechless, guess who happens to pass by? The Good Samaritan of course (sort of expected that twist, didn’t you?). Seeing the average guy standing there the Good Samaritan asked him what seemed to be the problem, to which the average guy pointed out that someone, seemed to have stolen his roof.