What is it to be good ?

We are coming to half term and a long half term it has been. Soon Christmas will be upon us with all its joys, excitement and promise of hope for the future. I have been thinking this week about what makes a good person and how we can try to achieve that. I learnt some twenty years ago when I had a nervous breakdown that money, position and power over others were worth nothing in themselves if we did not value our health, our family and the good we can do for others. This is why, when I got better I returned to teaching.

 Aristotle  lived in ancient times and wrote some of the greatest books on how people ought to live. He says of the good person:

“It  belongs to goodness to do good to the deserving and love the good and hate the wicked, and not to be eager to inflict punishment or take vengeance, but to be gracious and kindly. Goodness is accompanied by honesty, reasonableness, kindness, hopefulness, and also by such characteristics as love of home and of friends and of one's fellow-men, and love of what is noble..”

To me, as a psychologist, there is much wisdom in these words of over two thousand years ago. However, they will not necessarily serve you well in the world of wealth, competition and promotion. Nobody gives prizes for honesty, or kindness or for seeking justice for the poor and under-privileged. The prizes go to those who are most competitive in the human jungle, the industrialist who can make his workers unemployed without a thought, a politician who can cut nursery places for poor children, or ourselves ignoring the homeless on our streets.  So, we must behave well and do our best not because it will bring us praise or reward but because it is the right thing to do.