"They were the beginning of the Pay-It-Forward culture, the unspoken Valley culture that believes "I was helped when I started out and now it’s my turn to help others."
That's not how I interpret "pay it forward". I understood that to mean "I have done a good deed to you, now you do a good deed for someone else". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward
The examples given are about mentoring and cooperation. Different, but heart warming nonetheless.
The way I see it they are the same. The concept consists of a transaction in two parts, one between Alice and Bob, and on between Bob and Charlie.
Part 1: Alice helps Bob, and in lieu of payment says "pay if forward".
Part 2: Bob helps Charlie, fulfilling his "debt" to Alice. If Charlie offers to pay Bob, and Bob says "pay it forward", this begins a second transaction.
If we look at the internal thoughts of Bob during Part 2, they may very well look like "I was helped when I started out and now it’s my turn to help others.".
The OP describes the same thing with one minor variant: instead of Alice or Bob explicitly stating "pay it forward" the general rules of their culture have a built-in, default structure of "pay forward any karmic[1] debt". It is pretty easy to envision that after enough explicit statements of "pay it forward" that the statement need not be uttered because it is understood at that point.
Those are the same things no? If you were helped out then someone did a good deed to you, now you repay the favor by doing a good deed to someone else.
It's just 'out of phase' with respect to the starting point but otherwise perfectly equivalent. Like a co-sine wave looks just like a sine wave...
Whether you look at the two people that interact at one instant in time or at one person at two different points in their lives the chain remains the same.
I've had plenty of help in the past and I'm giving plenty of help in the present (as much as I can, which is still way too little). That means that for me the 'pay it forward' mechanism is a very real component of my life.
Those that are on the receiving end are not under any obligation, other than a moral one. And I'm pretty sure that for some of them the message is lost, but every now and then the spark lights a new flame.
Pay it forward is an asynchronous mechanism, whether it actually worked or not you can't even determine in most cases.
Those that are on the receiving end are not under any obligation, other than a moral one
But that's the point. To pay first, you are operating under faith that this is the right thing to do. To pay back after you have received is more like settling a moral debt. For some people taking that leap of faith- doing good before being guaranteed that there is something in it for them- is really hard. They have what I consider to be a narrow and limited view of their self-interest, and don't believe or understand that making the world better is in their self interest, if not obviously and directly so.
'He did not think that all these companies would succeed -- he filed his paperwork for several of them in shoe boxes that he kept in his closet -- but he strongly believed that by investing, he was doing his part, as he put it, to "restock the stream I've fished from."'
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"They were the beginning of the Pay-It-Forward culture, the unspoken Valley culture that believes "I was helped when I started out and now it’s my turn to help others."
That's not how I interpret "pay it forward". I understood that to mean "I have done a good deed to you, now you do a good deed for someone else". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward
The examples given are about mentoring and cooperation. Different, but heart warming nonetheless.
The way I see it they are the same. The concept consists of a transaction in two parts, one between Alice and Bob, and on between Bob and Charlie.
Part 1: Alice helps Bob, and in lieu of payment says "pay if forward".
Part 2: Bob helps Charlie, fulfilling his "debt" to Alice. If Charlie offers to pay Bob, and Bob says "pay it forward", this begins a second transaction.
If we look at the internal thoughts of Bob during Part 2, they may very well look like "I was helped when I started out and now it’s my turn to help others.".
The OP describes the same thing with one minor variant: instead of Alice or Bob explicitly stating "pay it forward" the general rules of their culture have a built-in, default structure of "pay forward any karmic[1] debt". It is pretty easy to envision that after enough explicit statements of "pay it forward" that the statement need not be uttered because it is understood at that point.
[1] In colloquial sense of the term karma.
Those are the same things no? If you were helped out then someone did a good deed to you, now you repay the favor by doing a good deed to someone else.
It's just 'out of phase' with respect to the starting point but otherwise perfectly equivalent. Like a co-sine wave looks just like a sine wave...
It's just 'out of phase'
It's the phase that makes it pay it _forward_ instead of backward. Obviously in every interaction, at most one of the actors can pay it forward.
I think it is just a viewpoint shift.
Whether you look at the two people that interact at one instant in time or at one person at two different points in their lives the chain remains the same.
I've had plenty of help in the past and I'm giving plenty of help in the present (as much as I can, which is still way too little). That means that for me the 'pay it forward' mechanism is a very real component of my life.
Those that are on the receiving end are not under any obligation, other than a moral one. And I'm pretty sure that for some of them the message is lost, but every now and then the spark lights a new flame.
Pay it forward is an asynchronous mechanism, whether it actually worked or not you can't even determine in most cases.
Those that are on the receiving end are not under any obligation, other than a moral one
But that's the point. To pay first, you are operating under faith that this is the right thing to do. To pay back after you have received is more like settling a moral debt. For some people taking that leap of faith- doing good before being guaranteed that there is something in it for them- is really hard. They have what I consider to be a narrow and limited view of their self-interest, and don't believe or understand that making the world better is in their self interest, if not obviously and directly so.
I think it is just a viewpoint shift.
It is, but that doesn't mean they're the same. Left and right are just a viewpoint shift (they are mirror images). Yet they are definitely distinct.
From the article mentioned in the post: http://januarymagazine.com/features/minmicrochipexc.html
'He did not think that all these companies would succeed -- he filed his paperwork for several of them in shoe boxes that he kept in his closet -- but he strongly believed that by investing, he was doing his part, as he put it, to "restock the stream I've fished from."'