https://www.1517.org/articles/the-deadliness-of-good-intentions
Therapists spend hours, if not years, trying to explain to people that intent does not equal impact. For example, you may not have intended to hurt your kids, but the fact of the matter is, you hurt your kids. You can’t tell your kids “stop acting hurt because I intended to do good—it just went wrong.” Therapists try to bring patients from the reality of “it went wrong” to “it needs to be made right.”
We try to justify ourselves through the means of the ever-virtuous “intent.” Intent is the mind’s way of searching for some redemption, or some justification. Intent is often a liar. It covers the sins of pride and entitlement.
When we take a harder look at intent, we’ll find the “lesser sins” that we find tolerable, if not necessary sometimes to get the desired outcome that we’d prefer. For example, we had to lie, because otherwise they wouldn’t do what we needed them to do for a good thing to happen. Or, we were only making a prayer request, not gossiping. Any time we bend the law to fit our need for a “good thing,” we are attempting to do, we’ll find calculated manipulation, or the thoughtful way we hide what our actions so as to not upset anyone.