Let’s just focus on doing the good we can do. Let’s forget about credit. Let’s forget about gratitude. We don’t need anyone to appreciate us, to recognize us. We do good because we are good, and everything else is extra.

That’s what Joan Didion said about self-respect—which is what integrity is rooted in. To be without it, she warned, “is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably

But this is what the ancients would have told us, that nothing good results from trying to chase down gratitude or recognition for what you’ve done. “When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top—credit for the good deed or a favor in return?” Marcus Aurelius would ask himself.

We worked hard because it was our job, because we wanted to realize our potential. The financial compensation is something we are glad to get but also understand is extra. We earned it once, we can earn it again. And what kind of person values their fun—or redundant security—over the alleviation of someone else’s suffering?

Do what is right. Do it right now.

It doesn’t matter that we had a good reason. Or if it worked out all right in the end. We have to hold ourselves to a high standard, higher than perhaps even the organization itself. And we have to be brave enough to willingly accept the consequences when we fall short of those standards, in fact, calling them out even when nobody notices.

When the Talmud says that he who saves one person saves the world, maybe that’s partly what they meant—because you certainly save that person’s whole world.

The Stoics said we should try to see every person we meet as an opportunity for kindness. This is a wonderful change in perspective. It transforms daily life, as challenging and noxious as it can be, into a series of chances, one after another, to be nice, to do something nice, to be considerate, to make a positive difference.

You didn’t do anything you weren’t supposed to do. As a talented and intelligent person, it was your job to do that thing. Whether it was a nice gesture or some difficult-to-pull-off feat, you did what you were capable of doing, what you were trained to do, what you were expected to do.