Have you ever felt like you did the right thing and somehow got punished for it? I certainly have, and recently, these situations seem to be multiplying like rabbits in springtime. There's an old saying that "No good deed goes unpunished," and sometimes life appears determined to prove that axiom true.

In the past couple of weeks, I faced two particularly challenging situations where I followed the right path with the purest intentions, only to be met with heartbreak and disappointment. I won't bore you with the details, but imagine doing everything by the book—crossing every 't', dotting every 'i'—and still ending up with results that make you question whether you should have bothered at all.

In times like these, it's tempting to throw up our hands and say, "Why bother? What's the point in living right if things are going to turn out badly anyway?"