Virtue's payoff

Some writers and thinkers, the Dalai Lama among them, suggest there is a benefit to the person for practicing being loving and kind. The Dalai Lama calls this "wise selfish". Others have called it karma. There is the belief that for every action there is a reaction, and that can give us pause. What do we want the reaction to be to us? This is a well-studied principle in behavior modification. If we want people to respond differently to us, change the way we have been acting. It is insightful to see this with children. On the playground one can observe that some children have other children wanting to be with them, speaking to them, friendly with them. In other cases there are children completely alone, without companions. (Fortunately, the child who is alone can be taught the social skills to interact if that is what he/she desires.) If one observes, often the actions of the child who has others wanting to be with her/him includes being friendly, fun, kind. When we extend the playground observation to adult life and to dealing with dementia, one can extrapolate the possibility that a reaction for being kind is to feel good about it, and the people to whom we are kind are more likely to want to cooperate with us.