How to Be Good

How to Be Good

What a therapist(ˈTHerəpəst), scholar(ˈskälər), monk(məNGk), C.E.O. and others can teach us about bringing our best to everything we do, every day.

By Simran Sethi

By the end of the year, I felt tired and overwhelmed, ready to peel(pēl) away onionskin(ˈənyənˌskin) layers of regret(rəˈɡret). That’s most likely why, when I wandered by a Little Free Library, Nick Hornby’s book “How to be Good” called out to me, the bright(brīt) yellow cover a beacon(ˈbēkən), the title offering redemption(rəˈdem(p)SH(ə)n) for mistakes large and small.

The book tells the story of a doctor boldly(ˈbōldlē) (and hilariously(həˈlerēəslē)) navigating the rocky road of self-improvement: “Just because I wasn’t good,” the protagonist(prōˈtaɡənəst, prəˈtaɡənəst) muses(myo͞oz), “it didn’t mean I was bad.” But as I reached the novel’s end, I realized I had not arrived at the answer to what exactly it means to be good. So, I asked Mr. Hornby.

“It’s a constant theme, isn’t it?” he emailed in response. “Especially now, when we have no excuse not to know what’s going on. We are bombarded(bämˈbärd) with images of others less fortunate(ˈfôrCHənət) than ourselves. What are we supposed to do about it?”

This is the question. What are we to do? As we struggle to confront(kənˈfrənt) an ever-growing number of crises, how can we be good to ourselves and others? The starting point is understanding what we mean by “goodness.”

Rachana(rəchanə) Kamtekar, a professor of philosophy(fəˈläsəfē) at Cornell University, explained goodness by way of ancient(ˈānCHənt) Greek philosophy: “For Plato(ˈplātō), goodness is the same as happiness. We desire appetitively(ˈapəˌtīdiv) because of our bodies. We desire emotionally because of our sense of self in contact with other human beings. And we also have rational(ˈraSHnəl,ˈraSHənl) desires to understand how to do what’s best. Our goodness requires all of these capacities(kəˈpasədē) to be developed and then expressed.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/smarter-living/how-to-be-good.html