Feelings: Defeated

Thoughts: As avid readers of my blog are keenly aware (hi Mum!), I bailed on 30 Days Of Altruism after Day Twenty Four. This was realistically because I flew to Scotland and started performing 2-5 shows a day, a schedule which left time only for sleeping, eating and regretting my life choices. But the real reason I bailed was because as the month wore on I became increasingly cynical and disappointed in myself for even starting the campaign.

Google tells me that altruism is “the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.” By virtue of the fact that I needed to do something nice every day, nothing I did was completely selfless. I was doing nice things for others for my own benefit. If you can call a blog a benefit. Most of the things I did were not too far out of my natural inclination and I felt an increasing sadness as each good deed couldn’t just be a good deed. It totally inverted all the positivity of altruism into the dark greediness of self gain. In the end I concluded that with the 2-5 show schedule pushing me to the brink of crankiness, the best thing I could do for the people in my vicinity was to shut up and do my job.

This was the first month challenge that I didn’t pick for myself, so I’m not surprised that it ended up clanging against my sensibilities. But all that moral unpleasantness is behind us now, and as I’m in America I will relaunch my blog with some good old fashioned Thirty Days Of Free: American Style! This may not be the most altruistic of sentiments but the blog will probably benefit the community more than buying donuts for Em.