Why is it so hard to be good?

I'm on the board of a small organization that is re-birthing itself after nearly dying. The Treasurer of this board is a bookkeeper, which is good, but through a combination of extremely difficult personal circumstances, she has missed every board meeting this year, and has done none of the Treasurely duties except for signing checks - which she does only because our bookkeeper lives a few blocks from her and brings the checks to the woman's house.

Being the only other person on the board with nonprofit financial management experience, I have become the de facto Treasurer. With neither request nor acknowledgement from the actual Treasurer, mind you - but I was ok with this because I heard that her personal situation really was quite awful. So I have spent numerous hours photocopying financial statements, reviewing the accounting records before each board meeting in order to answer questions for the board, spending countless irritating hours at our bank and running around with forms to get account signors changed, and - at the request of the board president - drafting a set of fiscal policies. Which, after three months of review time by the board, we passed last month.

I dutifully send the policies out to the full board, in response to which the Treasurer today sent me a long, virulently angry email about the fact that we did all this without consulting her, and how, boy, if "being Treasurer means nothing more than signing checks," she might was well just resign.

Now, I read this and felt empathy. I realized I could have noticed that she hadn't been present for any board meetings and reached out to talk to her about the fiscal policies. I responded with an apology for that, and a long explanation of my reasoning for the many things she found objectionable in my policies. I didn't feel angry - after all, her outburst, while largely groundless, was most likely an extension of her stress, and did me no actual harm whatsoever.

But then, as the day wore on, I found myself getting irritated. I thought - if you're pissed about doing nothing but signing checks - well, that's because you abdicated all the other parts of the job, not because I sat awake at night secretly thinking of how to steal the momentous prestige and power of being the Treasurer of a tiny and nearly bankrupt nonprofit. I have another large job, chair of the fundraising committee, which requires plenty of my time already. If she doesn't like the way I'm doing her job, then she could start doing it herself. In my head, I began composeing the clever email or tirade that I could to deliver to her, and be completely in the right.

I am disappointed with myself for thinking these things. Even though they are all "fair" in a certain sense, they are unnecessary and uncharitable. If she had undermined me in front of colleagues in a way that might harm me professionally, then yes, I would probably have to respond. But this doesn't matter at all; some fence-mending may be required, that's all.

Why is it so hard to turn the other cheek sometimes, even when it costs nothing? Why is it so satisfying to be right, even when it gains nothing? It makes me pessimistic for things like, you know, world peace.