Good Intentions

Everyone always says the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If that’s the case, then what is the road to heaven paved with?

Do people with evil or murderous intentions trip one day and fall into saving orphans from a burning building?

I’ve never understood that phrase. I find it to be insanely cynical. It instantly demonizes people who try to do good and care about helping others. The world makes it hard enough for those few idealists who try to help others with zero thought for their own gain. With that phrase, these folks may as well not even bother because they’re already the bad guy just for trying.

In a past life, I knew a guy named Ramy. He was one of these tried and true idealists. No matter how hard the world made it for him, no matter how cynical life was, he was undeterred. He ventured on.

He always went out of his way to try and help. Many times to his own detriment. If he could do something, anything, to help another person, he would. He never asked for one thing in return. I’d ask him sometimes – what’s the point when his goodwill would always go unnoticed and would sometimes outright backfire?

His answer always stayed the same. The point is the act itself. The point isn’t to get recognition and isn’t to only do things with guaranteed results. The point is stepping up when everyone else steps aside or has better things to do.

I’ve seen him stand by people long past their expiration date. People that everyone, me included, had given up on. He never gave up on them and always stood by them, pushing them to take a better path. One of those guys is now a nurse in Waterloo and helps people for a living. Another did 7 years for manslaughter before getting killed in Fort Mac in 2016 in a drug deal gone wrong.

No matter how good or bad the percentage of success from his good intentions, Ramy never wavered. He always meant well and always put others first. I envied him in that way. As much as I try to always act with the best intentions, like most humans, I’m fallible and sometimes cynicism kicks in. These days more than ever unfortunately.

I thought of Ramy this week when I went to see the new Superman. The movie is about staying true and good in a world desperate to prove you wrong and drag you down. Hope amidst cynicism. Humanity amidst greed. Light amidst darkness. Different medium but the same lessons I took from Ramy.

I haven’t seen my friend in many years and am not quite sure what happened to him. He’s never believed in social media, and I’ve lived several different lives since our paths last crossed. Nonetheless, watching Superman I remembered him.

Like Superman, Ramy never stopped trying. He always pushed forward. No barrier slowed him down. No matter how much the world tried to drag him into the mud, he always stayed above it.

I’m not a religious person and don’t necessarily believe in the afterlife, but one thing I am sure of is this: I don’t know where Ramy is or where he’s going. It might be hell, who knows? But if it is, it won’t be good intentions that got him there.