I try to do the right thing.

Sometimes, trying to do the right thing for someone who doesn't know I'm doing it for them leaves them with a half solution, so for them it looks like they're getting shafted, because I haven't told them I stood in the gap so things wouldn't suck more than they do.

Sometimes, even while trying to do the right thing, life keeps happening. The house foundation cracks. Pipes back up sewage into the bathtubs. The dog gets sick. I get sick. I can't get to life stuff because I'm tied up in this rightness.

Sometimes, when I'm trying to do the right thing, I can bust my ass, "do whatever it takes", "run the gauntlet", brutalize myself so people downstream don't get as brutalized as much as they could, work 70-90 hour weeks for months on end, try to get something good done because that's who I am; not because I expect anything out of it.

And in the midst of that, I can be black balled, slandered, disrespected, taken advantage of, and removed from my position. I might even be asked to go hide, even though that's not how I'm built.

Sometimes, when I try to the do the right thing ... all I end up with is having tried to do the right thing.

And that's enough.