Neighbor shovels snow from elderly resident’s driveway every morning, decides to confront other neighbors for not offering to help too: ‘How would you feel if she was your mother?’ – FAIL Blog

Is it really your responsibility to ensure others do kind deeds?

The short answer is, obviously, no.

Everyone is responsible for themselves; we are aware of that. Whether or not you do good and help others around you is completely up to you. Your actions are based on your decisions and judgment, and no one else has a say in them. This also goes the other way around. You can’t control anyone else’s actions but your own. You can’t force someone to do something, even if you know that it is for the better. Whether or not other people are kind or helpful to others is not up to you. You can be encouraging and inspiring, but you can’t force anyone to be a good person.

The neighbor in the story below has good intentions when it comes to helping others around the neighborhood. For years, this neighbor and their daughter have helped an 80-year-old neighbor by shoveling the snow from her driveway. She lives alone, and she has no children, so the neighbor knows she has no one else to do that for her. Every time it snows, this neighbor picks up the shovel and heads to her driveway to do something for her that they know she can’t do herself.

That is every good deed, if you ask us.

However, the story doesn’t end there. One morning, when the neighbor was out shoveling snow for the elder lady, another resident stopped by and said hello. The short conversation pushed the neighbor to ask something that had been on their mind for quite some time: ‘Why does no one else offer to help the nice lady?’

In response, the other resident laughed it off, but the neighbor pushed on. The helpful neighbor wanted others to understand just how important it is to be there for those who need a helping hand, even if it means confronting them for their lack of action. The interaction ended quite awkwardly, after the resident still refused to listen to their neighbor and offer their help. This leads to the question–should the helpful neighbor demand others’ help as well, or should they focus on themselves and not force others to do good deeds?