Posted on 15 Sep, 2010 -
But are we GOOD people?
Are we so caught up in our aim to be happy, healthy, wealthy and successful that we forget about aiming to be ‘good’?
What does morality mean in the Age of Entitlement?
9 New Commandments for the Modern Age?
Dear Reader,
I have written on the idea of morality or ‘being good’ on several occasions before.
If I looked back, I wonder if I’d find it was a September thing? Something to do with the first falling leaves. A certain serene wistfulness you get in the skies.
It is perhaps because of the new school terms starting, in fact, that September often feels more like the beginning of a new era to me than the New Year in January.
Summer is nearly over. We have had our fun. It is time to show our worth now. To contribute something to a world that has given us strawberries and beans and sunshine and the very blackest of black shiny blackberries in the hedgerows.
But what do we have to give?
Only a couple of the Ten Commandments still offer any useful guidance
I was having a conversation about ‘goodness’ with my sister recently. A person whose strong Christian principles almost tempt me to the church.
Like Gandhi in the quote I cited last week, she said that she believes that we all naturally err. That we are often a little bad and nobody always good. Rather than trying to deny our innate ‘badness’, however, we should accept that it is there and realise that it is our job to be aware of our temptations and to make efforts to resist them and do good things.
But what, I wondered, does it really mean to ‘be good’?
I have looked at the Ten Commandments but that didn’t personally help me much (all a little to outdated, obvious or religious). Although there were a couple of modern interpretations of a few that struck me as thought-worthy:
‘Thou shall have no other gods before me.’
Now, you can either take this in the traditional sense if you’re a believer. Or you can translate it to me that some kind of spiritual connection to life and the world around you must come first in your life. Too many people these days, apparently, make money their god, or put ideas of fame or entertainment ahead of a peaceful connection to pure existence…
‘Thou shalt not covet.’
Or, to put it in modern terms, we should not want what other people have and think always about what WE want. We should learn, instead, to think of the welfare of others.
And I suppose if I think about it, that is the main principle I believe we should all try and live by:
To be nice to other people. To try to make other people feel good. And to want this for ALL people - not those of the right creed or colour or proximity to ourselves.
What set of principles do you live your life to?
One definition of ‘goodness’ or ‘morality’ I read said that it was ‘conformity of one’s life and conduct to moral and ethical principles’.
And I believe there is an extent to which each of us lives their life also to a principle or set of principles (however vague, unformed and unrecognised) that is individual to ourselves.
In the wrong hands and given half a chance, of course, this can lead to principles of genocide, serial adultery and other destructive beliefs about what is ‘good’.
But we all have our own different and personal bit to do. Our own thing to add to the world. However small.
A few tips on morality from some more moral people than me!
And so the debate goes on.
In fact, I am going to halt my own mutterings at this point and offer you some ideas from other sources that I have stumbled upon:
Take ACTIVE steps to do good things. While avoiding doing bad things is obviously a good start, actually going out of your way to do good things - or just better things than you normally do - will take it one step further.
What constitutes a good act will depend on our own ideas and circumstances. Right now I’m thinking I might set myself a target of doing One Really Good Thing each week.
Think more about the consequences of our actions and behaviours. One difficulty about trying to be good (I didn’t realise it was going to take SO much effort!) is that we often don’t realise how the consequences of our actions affect other people. When we are in a bad mood or frame of mind, for example, we tend to be thinking about our own unhappiness and become relatively blind to the affect that we are having on the lives of others. When we’re doing something we love, we tend to feel so good about it, we’re blind to the idea that it might have negative consequences for those around us…
Look at the bigger picture. Goodness, just like charity, invariably begins at home. I know from my own behaviour, for example, that I try very hard to do the right things for my own children. But how much do I try and care about the welfare of other children that I know? And how much does what I try and do to make my own family comfortable impact on people in the rest of the world? (Hmmm...)
The up side of being sad. If you’re feeling a bit sad and reflective, look on the bright side: scientists tell us we’re more thoughtful and better at rational thinking when we’re sad. Feeling down and uncertain may not feel good when we’re in it but it may lead to better things.
Believe in the power of your actions to influence others. When other people see you doing good deeds, they will be reminded to take more positive action themselves.
To lie or not to lie? Don’t get too hung up about the idea that lying is bad. Most of us tell small lies throughout the day - as acts of kindness or harmless self defense. We lie to a host about how much we liked their soup - or to a child about the brilliance of their story. In fact, if somebody tells me they always say what’s on their mind, I tend to steer clear of them.
On the other hand, as Stefan Einhorn points out in his book, ‘The Art of Being Kind’, sometimes we avoid telling the truth because we are too embarrassed - when actually it would have been a brave act of kindness to do so. He asks, for example, whether it would be right to tell somebody they had a BO or bad breath problem - especially if you knew it was impacting on their social life.
Asking for advice and giving good criticism. In the same book, Einhorn tells us that it is a good thing to offer kind and constructive criticism to people if we give it in order to help the recipient grow in some way.
“I have already mentioned that when we ask someone for advice, a situation arises in which both parties win. It is therefore a good idea to be generous with our requests for advice from other people. My experience is that if there is a potential conflict on the horizon, it can often be defused by asking the other person how we should best handle the situation.”
The great Chinese philosopher, Confucius, had some interesting ideas about what it means to be a good person. Some of the attributes he said we should aspire to, for example, include Purpose, Poise, Self-Sufficiency, Earnestness, Sincerity and Purity of thought and action.
“The superior man must be watchful over himself when alone.”
(Great Learning, vi., 2.)
Greed and gluttony and over-indulgence in sensual pleasure… All come up as not such good things to do in much religious and philosophical thought…
Hmmm… Maybe I should skip lunch? Or perhaps I’ll just take some comfort in the words of Henry David Thoreau:
“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.”
Best wishes for a good week.
