The demands of being a good person can sometimes mean sacrificing your own happiness. You may have been raised to be a good boy or girl; encouraged to be a good worker, to be a good parent; to be a good friend; to be a good citizen… And I’m not saying that this is wrong; what questioning effects of this on our individual happiness and impact on our country.
Are we becoming happier more fulfilled people by being “good” or are we just a group of people heading nowhere but where we’re told?
If we continue to be good workers, will this ever allow us to achieve our full potential as human beings? If we continue to be good-parents, protecting our children when it is safe to empower them, will they grow to be all they can be? If we continued to be good friends, by sheltering our companions from truth, will they ever get information that is vital to their well-being? And if we continue to be good citizens who go along with what were told and are happy to leave issues in hands of ‘higher’ authorities will we ever live alongside one another, full of love and accepting of our differences?
What does “good” mean anyway? In “good old days,” good literally meant, “good!” But today good often means “average” or “normal”: about half-way between everything and nothing – on pivotal point between life and death… one thing miss judged and out of kilter and suddenly we’re on wrong side of life.
“Good” is also often about fitting in with set of parameters set up by people we associate with. This often involves giving pre-programmed responses to requests or behaving in an expected way – like telling your children not to do something at your parents home when you would allow them to do it at home or staying behind an extra hour or two at work because of targets set by boss. But issue goes deeper…