Reality check

My dad always said, "I cannot fish for you. I can only teach you how to fish, so that next time, you can fish for yourself, and in turn, teach other people how to fish."
Many times in life we feel like giving up, and we feel like we want to take the easy way out. But what for live if everyone takes the easier path? Where is the life in that? Where is the challenge? What kind of life would we be leading if it was easy? Would it be all meaningful then?

I have come to believe that a meaningful life is one where you "teach people how to fish". As cynical as the world may be, I still believe that there is goodness in people, and not everybody's motives have another motive behind it.
If you lived for say, a thousand years, but not changed the people around you (for better purposes, of course), where is the sense of fulfillment? Or better yet, where is the sense of happiness?
A happy life is one where you bring happiness to others.

Sometimes I watch people yearn for happiness so much, or sometimes I simply watch myself. But what everyone misses is that you can't sit around and wait for happiness to come. You have to give, for it to come back in return. "What goes around, comes around". My brother told me this a few years back in anger, when he shouted it at me across the room, and it has stayed in my heart ever since. Not because of the words he shouted, no, but because of what he was trying to tell me. Whilst this phrase is always used in negative terms, it applies to everything we do in life. I believe that nature has its ways around things. That when you do good, you get something good in return. Similarly, when you sin, you have to pay for the sin.
And this scares me sometimes, because sometimes I think I only do good because I want something else in return. Tsk. How contradicting and complex at the same time.

I decided a long time ago that I wanted to dedicate my life to teaching people how to fish, or showing people that they, too, can fsh and be inspired. But fuck, sometimes I just feel like giving up.
I know about having faith and all the other shit, but what for have faith when all you end up with are futile attempts? What for have faith when life keeps smacking you in the face?

People are so cynical. I am so cynical. Everything is always about the benefit of yourself, how this or that can improve your life, how stepping on others can get you to the top.

I need a reality check.
I want to know that there is something more beyond this.