For some reason most human beings tend to focus on the bad, not on the good… Children are often shouted at or punished for mistakes they made or ‘naughty’ things they did, but barely noticed for something good they did… Is it because being good is usually seen as normal, therefore not worth highlighting? Even when praise is given, it is often just a few words, whereas punishment may be quite harsh in some cases. Why is that? Does it work? Do we live in a better society because of this? The very judicial system in most countries works in a similar way: prison (or worse) for those who misbehaved and nothing for those who did something especially good, even heroic acts. In the best cases a few words of praise or, at the most, a medal or something may be offered for a heroic act. There is absolutely no balance! If a ‘criminal’, say somebody who has stolen something, had also done something very good in his/her life, this is hardly ever taken into consideration, if not as a simple mitigating circumstance. Let’s take the hypothetical example of somebody who kills one person, but then saves another one who would otherwise have died. Mathematically, one minus one would be zero, no punishment, but things don’t work like that – this person would be condemned even if he had saved ten people!

We all behave like this even towards ourselves – many of us feel guilty about mistakes we have done, even minor ones, and hardly ever think of all the good things we have done. Ajahn Brahm, my favourite Buddhist monk, told the story of the time he first went to Australia and had to build his monastery together with his fellow monks and other volunteers. At some point he was in charge of building a wall with bricks and cement. In spite of not having any previous experience, the final result was quite good… except from one particular brick which was not straight, jutting out a little form the flat surface of the wall. When he realized that, he felt so bad about it to the point he was considering pulling the wall down and starting anew! He didn’t do that, but kept feeling bad whenever he walked past that wall. When the monastery was finally completed, a group of people came to visit the monastery and, on walking past the wall, one of them commented positively about it, saying that a very good job had been done. At that point Ajahn Brahm asked him: ‘A very god job? Haven’t you noticed that crooked brick, that terrible mistake of mine?’ To that the visitor replied: ‘I didn’t really notice that one crooked brick, but I did notice the 99 perfect ones’! I’m asking again: why do we focus so much on the negative? Even in the terms we use to call people! For instance, at the beginning of this short article I placed ‘criminal’ in inverted commas. This, too, comes from Ajahn Brahm. He thinks that saying, for example, ‘a murderer’ to refer to somebody who has killed somebody, or ‘a thief’ to refer to somebody who stole something, makes that person appear bad in his/her totality, as if there was nothing else in those people apart from the terrible thing they have done. Even a convict may have done something good in his life, but we do not care, we see him just as a ‘criminal’ and nothing else… Many volunteers who have worked in prisons have witnessed that many convicts are not horrible persons, and were deeply sorry for what they had done.

Newspapers, too, focus on the bad – apparently only the bad makes the news (and provides economic benefits for the newspaper owners). I once heard an interview to the editor of a small newspaper (it was in the US I believe, but it was long time ago and I forgot many details, including the name of this newspaper) whose policy was to publish only positive news. By ‘positive news’, he explained, he didn’t mean things like the police rescuing a cat, people getting married and such things. He meant any news, even terrible ones, but with a focus on the positive side, like a rape case, for example. He said that after briefly describing the facts, the article would try to focus on the positive side, like the victim setting up an association to help other rape victims, or something like this. I wonder if this paper still exists… Even wars are often about ‘punishing’ countries for the bad things they (actually their leaders) did. Isn’t there any other way? Even ‘bad’ leaders may have some good parts that we should try to target, and not just see them as ‘monsters’.

Perhaps rather than punishing we should try and focus on positive reward. Highlighting the good rather than the bad. Giving rewards rather than punishments. This goes against our whole culture, I know, but I think that if we could do that we could live in a better world.