Everyone gets it: Good and evil are polar opposites in the same way light and dark are polar opposites.
We all love good, and we all hate evil, because good always leads to pleasant outcomes, and evil always leads to unpleasant outcomes.
We persevere through our battles between good and evil because good is often difficult to perform, whereas evil is often easy to perform.
We put in the work because good is like cultivating grain, which has to be nurtured constantly, whereas evil is like sowing weeds, which tend to thrive under even the harshest of circumstances.
We endeavor to recapture true values and maintain proper perspective because good sometimes involves seemingly unpleasant experiences, whereas evil sometimes involves seemingly pleasant experiences.
We cultivate the virtue of patience because good can take a long period of time to develop, whereas evil can develop in a short period of time.
We sacrifice because good is synonymous with being selfless, and evil is synonymous with being selfish.
Good and evil have an obvious polar opposition between them.
But good and evil are not always in polar opposition to each other.
Please think deeply about the following fact about good and evil, because it is so important in any effort to promote good and diminish evil; it may actually be the only key to spreading good and stopping evil: A little bit of good doesn’t make anything bad good, and a little bit of evil will make anything good bad.
When it comes to good, it’s all or nothing! When it comes to evil, it’s anything goes!
One could argue that the battle between good and evil actually is inherently unfair. Unfair in the sense that good requires constant, diligent, dogged, resilient, unyielding effort, whereas evil requires only the tiniest effort at a minimum. Imagine then the real battle we face when evil actually exerts constant, diligent, dogged, resilient, unyielding effort.
We are probably well familiar with the axiom: A good tree doesn’t produce rotten fruit, and a rotten tree doesn’t produce good fruit. It takes a lot of good-ness for a good tree to be good. But only a little bit of rot is all it takes for a tree to be rotten.
It’s an uphill struggle!
But it’s not an impossible or meritless one!
Entities in the business of spreading evil will likely find “success” easily and quickly, and they can effortlessly play both the short game and the long game. Those who cherish good can find success in playing both the short game and the long game. However, they need to make sure that they don’t get discouraged if their success doesn’t come easily and quickly. They just need to remember that while it doesn’t take a lot to be evil, it takes an awful lot to be good.
And that’s just the way it is.
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