“Doing something is better than doing nothing.”

That is the comment that someone wrote to me this week on a fairly heated Facebook exchange as I was critiquing a public action that had happened in South Africa, which was not being properly received by some.

It made me think of this story:

The other day I was driving around my neighbourhood and I saw some kids on the side of the road who were hungry. I didn’t have any food and so I drove past them. But then I thought to myself, “No, doing something is better than doing nothing, so I pulled over, collected a bunch of rocks that were lying at the side of the road, drove back to the kids and threw my rocks at them, making sure I hit each kid at least once.

Yes, my mind works like that sometimes. And no I didn’t actually throw any stones at any children. But that parable illustrates an extreme version of the ‘Doing something is better than doing nothing’ ideology that obviously shows that it is not always true. Sometimes, doing nothing is a lot better than doing a wrong, unhelpful, potentially dangerous thing.

THE CHURCH AND THE PAINT

When we lived in Philadelphia for 18 months, we stayed with a friend Sueihn, who used to spend her holidays with a Native American community to serve and love them. She told us the one story about how one summer during a six week period six churches came on a missions trip to the community, painted the church, and left. So each group goes home with photos and stories of how amazing they were in this community. And a church got painted SIX TIMES!

Again, an example of doing nothing being better than doing something.

THE THIRD WAY

But wait, there is another way. Even better than choosing to do nothing rather than doing something bad, unhelpful or destructive, we can choose to do the right thing.

One of the problems with doing the right thing is that it can take decidedly more time, energy, effort and sacrifice. But if it brings the worthwhile end result, maybe that is something we should be focusing on more.

The Facebook exchange I alluded to at the beginning of this piece was around a movement called #BlackMonday. Tired of the government and some recent decisions, a number of people decided to wear black clothes to protest and let the government know they weren’t happy. One of the many problems with this though was that a lot of black people felt like white people had been silent during a whole lot of other events that affected them and when something affected white people, only then did they get up to protest. So one of the major problems of this was a history of inaction.

With the church painting scenario, it looks more like a lack of communication or relationship. The church that went in to the reservation assumed that the best thing to do for the community was to paint their church. After all, who doesn’t want a painted church roof? (Answer: A church that has already been painted five times!) So they would have done much better had they spoken to the people in the reservation before they went and asked what was needed or wanted from the community they were going to visit.

Some ways we can have a better chance of doing the right thing include:

Build genuine relationships: 

Doing something with someone rather than for someone tends to carry a lot more weight. If we build authentic relationships with the people around us, then we are more likely to learn and understand and be able to talk about the needs that exist.

Good communication:

Instead of assuming the needs or wants of a group or person, ask them. Again, if we are building good relationship then the foundation has been set for us to communicate an idea we might have (“Hey I thought this might be fun for you. Would it be?”) or inquire about a space where our help might be appreciated.

Do your homework: 

It helps to put in some time to learn about whatever situation you are wanting to invest in. If you are doing work in a country, spend some time researching its history. If you are going into a particular area, try to speak to some people who live there or have visited before. If you are dealing with race issues as I am in South Africa, read books written be people who don’t look like you. And so on.

The idea of ‘Doing something is better than doing nothing’ actually feels quite lazy to me. Which also suggests the likelihood of inauthentic relationships or bad communication. None of these are very helpful and you probably would be better off doing nothing. But that in itself is not super helpful either and so let’s commit to the third way of doing our best to ensure that the something we do, is something that will be helpful, beneficial and acceptable to all those involved.