What Does It Mean To Be A Good Person?
You must define it in order to be it.
I just love the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I tend to linger in my pajama’s longer than usual, eat more cookies than usual, work less than usual and spend most of my time reflecting. Most people are busy projecting into the future during this time of year but the way I see it, there’s no sense in conjuring up a New Year’s resolution or charting out how I will spend the next calendar year, when all I really need to know is who I am right now. Am I a good person? Am I trying to become a better person? What does it even mean to be a good person? The last question stumped me - maybe before I go blabbering on about being on a mission to make the world a better place, I should clearly define what I believe makes a person a good one. (If you think this is a simple task, I challenge you to write out your exact definition of what makes a person good and let me know how that goes.)
The way I see it, we tend to make the requirements a bit too loose. Instead of a clear definition of goodness, we instead use its opposite as what it is not. Via negativa - defining what something is by defining what it is not. This can be useful in attempts to define things beyond defining, like God, but I don’t like this method when it comes to goodness. In my view, simply not being bad or doing terrible things doesn’t make you good. No more than being nice means you are kind, or not being fat makes you healthy, or not being bankrupt makes you rich. We would be better served to actually understand what we believe it means to be a good person, if that is what we are aiming for.
Being a good person is what I am aiming for, so I spent the better part of this week getting clear on my definition of what goodness means. Here’s what I came up with…
A good person is someone whose contemplations and actions are unified.
In the simplest terms, when someone’s actions match their words. The trouble is, most people mistakenly believe they are walking the walk when they aren’t. They believe good intentions equate to goodness, and forget about the action part. Or they focus on doing acts and neglect the importance of contemplation. Doing good things alone doesn’t make you good, just as good thoughts aren’t enough on their own - taking action is required too. We achieve a level of goodness when the way in which we think is the way in which we show up in the world. In his book Yes, And…, Richard Rohr so eloquently states, You do not think yourself into a new way of living as much as you live yourself into a new way of thinking. Genius.
Sadly, Christians (like me) and other religious types are far too quick to call themselves good. I’m not saying they aren’t, I’m just saying they plant a flag on the mountain of goodness more often than those who are non-believers, simply because they believe in God. Relying solely on contemplation, or their belief in God, as if believing is enough. Or they do the opposite - go to church, say a rosary, tithe to their church but spend their time worshiping Jesus (not walking in His footsteps) and arguing over who is doing the worshipping right. A better route for believers would be to walk in the footsteps of their God, rather than getting caught up in proving themselves right. As a cradle Catholic who didn’t learn bible verses growing up, I have been amazed to discover never does Jesus instruct us to “worship Him,” but instead instructs us to “follow Him.” There’s a big difference between the two, and something worth investigating for my fellow Christians.
As I reflect on the past year, I’m holding myself accountable to my newly articulated definition of what it means to be a good person. Asking myself whether or not my conduct in the world matches my ways of thinking. Of course, as a human I am deeply flawed and I mess things up quite often, but I can honestly answer yes - this past year I have been harmonizing the way in which I think and the way in which I act. It takes work, every single day but most days I’m moving in the right direction. In large part, I believe this started with my focus for 2023 - to do less to become more. I started the year by focusing on what I needed to do less of, rather than what I needed to do more of, and it worked. Like Michelangelo chipping away everything that wasn’t David, I chipped away everything that wasn’t Evie. And by hollowing out all that didn’t belong, I made room for God to work through me without obstruction. Removing the separation between what I think and the way I behave. Unifying my contemplation and actions.
As you reflect back on 2023 and imagine what life can be in 2024, start by defining what it means to be good. After all, how can you possibly be better if you don’t know what good is.