Why are only the good-hearted left with broken hearts?

If your heart is hard or dark, you will have no idea what I’m talking about today — but for those born with good-hearts that are soft and loving, you know how it feels to have your heartfelt intentions trashed and thrown back in your face.

Only the good-hearted work hard and give their very bone and sinew — in addition to their most valuable, beating, muscle — to their jobs. They are under-appreciated and exploited in the workplace because the bosses — The Heartless — know the good-hearts want to do a good job, and they are reliable, and they do not complain.

On the other hand, the hard-hearted do not care about work or performance or pleasing those around them — yet they are paid more than the good-hearted even though they care less: Lower expectation returns a higher surprise value. Once a good-heart is broken in the wild, it can never be repaired or tamed and it risks becoming frozen in the stasis of wounded disbelief. In romance, the good-hearts give and love unconditionally, while the bad-hearts take, and crush, the good intentions of the beloved by draining them loveless.

The reason the stone-hearted are so successful against the good-hearts is because they recognize the goodness in others, but not the evil within their own beating blood. Meanwhile, the good-hearted never suspect anyone could have a heart less-good than their own — and that vital human folly is what the clever-hearts unwittingly use to cleave the good into the broken.

16 Comments

  1. I am one of those. I do all the work but get little credit. People that play the fame better than me get the attention but they don’t do the work of the team.

  3. Anne —
    I feel for you! The heartless and the stone-hearted are all around us. They accuse. They mock. They poke. They are worthless vessels wishing for the power of cudgels.
    The entire economy runs on the backs of the good-hearted like you while the evil-hearted continue to try to win the profit without fighting the war.

  7. As I’m sure you could figure out, I’m one of the heartbroken sort. I’m a little like Luke in Return of the Jedi – I keep trying to bring over those on the dark side over to the rebel alliance. 🙂

  8. haha… yupz u are right… the hart hearted knows how to exploit the good-hearted and also what you might have missed… they know how to work their way across the heirarchy even if it has to be done through taking credits of someone else’s pain and hardwork… that’s life dude… the sooner you accept.. the better… but try not to follow suit…
    always learn.. even from the fool… but don’t become a fool.

  9. I am the hard worker who never gets promoted or a raise because of all sorts of b.s. my supervisors tell me. I can’t stand working with high schoolers or collegiates because they all go to the back of the store to smoke and chit-chat, leaving me as “look-out” for customers — I worked at fast food at this point — because they knew I hated gossip and would rather work instead. (Me? I’d chitchat with you at the local diner after work, but no, you have other “obligations” after work.)
    Even the GM did nothing to stop it. That’s why I now would rather morning and lunch shifts at part-time jobs rather than work at night. Yea, you socialise with your co-workers during evening shifts, but I am at work to work, not socialise.

  10. David! this is a great article. i have nothing to add except – wow!
    Anne! the risk you may face, and i think it is imminent and kind of unavoidable, is that the ones who have a game cannot believe that you don’t have a game. especially since you are talented. many fail to understand that when you’ve identified and are passionate about a particular talent or gift that you possess, much of your waking and indeed dreaming life is devoted to it. it is only the ones who don’t believe they are talented in something, or have never bothered to put in the hours to hone their own gift, who then rely on their “game” to survive – it’s the easy way out. and in that construct it is the ones without a game who are most feared, and therefore more hated. because in their deepest and most secret places they know that they are despicable and have a nagging suspicion you know it too well.

  11. Gordon!
    Yes, you are one of the good hearts! You always try to do the right thing even in the face of being wronged. You must not give up, Boy Wonder! Keep up the good fight! 😀

  13. Jersey!
    Excellent comment! You are precisely the sort of valuable and wonderful employee I am describing in today’s article.
    There you are — stuck in the middle of the lackluster losers and I feel for you. Your good heart is there to work, not play, and you are not valued by those you rightly vow to serve.
    Can you imagine how much better the entire world would be if everyone had your respect and work ethic?

  15. Great article, David! As a social worker, I sometimes have my days and wonder why I have chosen a field that pays so little and is undervalued by the hospital system I am employed at.
    I have “Do Good Anyway” posted in my office and I refer to it on a daily basis. There are several versions of it on the internet and Mother Teresa is often credited with writing it. But it is actually the Paradoxical Commandments written by Dr. Kent Keith some years ago.
    You’re likely familiar with it, but for those who aren’t, here’s the link:
    http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com/
    Yes, “the good you do today will often be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway!”

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