Why To Be A Good Person

~15 minute read

REFLECTIONS OF A DEACON’S SON

For what it’s worth, I’m deeply grateful that I grew up in a religious household.

I learned the value of community, the importance of discipline, and as simple as it sounds, religion “worked” for me and made me (maybe still makes me) happier.

But when you grow up in a religious framework, you develop blind spots. Blindspots that grow as you grow. And by the time that you get to be older, blindspots that really impact the way you view and interact with the world around you.

For me, one of those blindspots has been internalizing a very simple truth: Life isn’t fair. More often than not, you can do the “right” thing and still not get the happy ending you think you deserve.

Alone though, this isn’t necessarily an issue. Because life not being fair is really only a problem if we want to be fair. If I feel no desire to be good and if life makes no promises of doling out riches for my good behavior then there is no problem.

But that’s the thing – I do feel a desire to be a good person. I do expect some reward for my doing good. And while I certainly don’t fault Christianity for making me believe that my good deeds would be rewarded, hearing pastors preach about our future glory and how God will bless me for fighting the good fight definitely didn’t do much to prepare me for a world where the good guy doesn’t always win.

So I went on a journey.

A journey to find a satisfying reason why and a refined way how to be a good person in what I perceived to be an unjust world. And that journey started with my really really understanding how not just (different than unjust) our world is and if I’m the only person it completely threw for a loop.

THE JUST WORLD HYPOTHESIS

To the second question first – no I am not the only person it threw for a loop . This belief that the world should be a just place is quite pervasive. So pervasive, in fact,  that social psychologists have taken to hypothesizing about it. They call it the Just-world hypothesis (also known as the Just-world fallacy), and it’s defined as our  strong desire or need to believe that the world is an orderly, predictable, and just place where people get what they deserve.1

Good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. It’s the type of fairytale logic that I so deeply believed growing up in my religious framework. As the just world hypothesis suggests, it’s the type of fairytale logic many of us still want to believe, religious or not. However, it’s also the type of fairytale logic that was busted centuries ago.

HALLUCINATIONS OF A PRISONER

1500 years ago there was a Roman statesman and academic named Boethius. 

By all measures, Boethius was a blessed man. A “good” man even. He was born into a wealthy family and took an early liking to Greek philosophy – think the writings of Plato and Aristotle. As such, he spent most of his life translating and commenting on Greek philosophical texts. 

He would eventually marry the daughter of an esteemed patrician and former consul – the equivalent of today’s prime minister or president – before becoming consul himself in 510 A.D.

Boethius and his wife had  two healthy sons. Both of whom would eventually hold the highly regarded title of Consul as well. In fact, they held the position at the same time, placing Boethius’ blood in the two highest elected offices one could hold in the Roman Republic. At the same time. Talk about a proud father.

Unfortunately, this brings us to the end of Boethius’ good fortune but to the beginning of our story. Because shortly after his sons’ consulships,  Boethius is wrongly accused of treason and thrown into prison, pried away from his family and career in a matter of moments.

But it’s in this prison that Boethius writes one of Roman classical antiquity’s most influential philosophical texts, The Consolation of Philosophy. And it’s in this text through his conversation with Lady Philosophy – the fictional heroine of philosophy that Boethius hallucinates – that Boethius busts my fairytale expectation that life is just, yet also explains how this doesn’t necessarily mean that life is unjust. Perhaps, Boethius illuminates, life is just random.

. . .

During this time, Romans would have worshiped Fortuna, the goddess of fortune. And, according to Lady Philosophy,  it is 3 characteristics of Fortuna’s nature that we fail to understand that create this tension between reality and what we think should be a just world.

1. Fortuna does not care about you

It’s here that we are first introduced to the famous wheel of fortune. Fortuna herself chimes in to Boethius’ conversation with Lady Philosophy and says it like this:

Herein lies my very strength; this is my unchanging sport.

 I turn my wheel that spins its circle fairly; I delight to make the lowest turn to the top, the highest to the bottom. 

Come you to the top if you will, but on this condition, that you think it no unfairness to sink when the rule of my game demands it.2

When misfortune strikes, we ask ‘why’ – Why me? Why now? Why this?

We demand a reason. But not just any reason. A personal reason. The events of our life need to be the consequences of a personal actor – whether that actor be ourselves, another person, or some all knowing, all powerful god.

“Just because” or the random chance that the proverbial wheel of fortune necessitates aren’t enough. We demand more.

We forget though that life is but a game and Fortuna its impartial game master, spinning her wheel so that good and bad luck alike befall whoever chance sees fit. Each of us no more special or deserving of good luck than the next guy.

“Why me?”

Wrong question.

 “Why not you?”

1. Fortuna’s core essence is inconsistency

“’What is it, mortal man, that has cast you down into grief and mourning? You have seen something unwonted, it would seem, something strange to you.

But if you think that Fortune has changed towards you, you are wrong.

 These are ever her ways: this is her very nature. She has with you preserved her own constancy by her very change.”3

Growing up, there was this magnet on my fridge that read “Change is inevitable – except from vending machines”.

A very strange magnet to have on a fridge but it communicated a wise lesson nonetheless. All we can be sure of is change. Whether that change is good or bad is up to Fortuna and her wheel.  But without fail, that wheel will spin and change will come.

1. Good fortune is Fortuna’s to take and hers to give; we aren’t entitled to anything

Why, O man do you daily accuse me with your complainings? What injustice have I wrought upon you? Of what good things have I robbed you? … 

When nature brought you forth from your mother’s womb, I received you in my arms naked and bare of all things; I cherished you with my gifts, and I brought you up all too kindly with my favouring care, wherefore now you cannot bear with me, and I surrounded you with glory and all the abundance that was mine to give…

You have no just cause of complaint, as though you had really lost what was once your own… 

Wealth, honours, and all such are within my rights. They are my handmaids; they know their mistress; they come with me and go when I depart.4

Psychologists often talk about the endowment effect: the observation that we value objects that we own more than their market value suggests we should.

Similarly, when good fortune befalls us, we believe it’s good fortune that we’ve deserved or earned. Whether through our actions or character, we believe that good fortune belongs to us.

And while I truly believe that we are all deserving of good things happening in our lives, Lady Philosophy would ask us to look at our good fortune for its true market value – Good fortune is a good thing that’s happened to us.

And that’s all it is. 

Sure, work hard and stay consistent and perhaps good things are bound to come your way. On the other hand, who among us doesn’t know somebody who’s as deserving as one can be but is still troubled with misfortune? On the same coin, we all know that somebody who is  as nasty as they come but is living the life many of us so deeply desire.

Good fortune is not always something we’ve earned by being better than the other guy or gal. It’s not our birthright. It’s not necessary that we have wealth and health.

So when you do have it, cherish it and enjoy it.

But when it inevitably leaves, consider it no personal injury or cosmic consequence. 

Maybe it’s just your turn to have a bad day.

MY TURN: A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT OUR NON JUST WORLD

Let’s refocus. Why to be a good person in an unjust world?

Boethius story helped me understand that perhaps our world isn’t just or unjust. Maybe it’s just (no pun intended) random . Interesting. Though now I’m left with a question that’s not much better – why should I be a good person in a random world?

Well these past few months, I’ve been testing out a refined way of looking at any and all misfortunes in my life. I’m talking the most minor inconveniences like getting tomato sauce on my favorite white t-shirt to losing out on a job I really wanted or even family health issues.

I say “I guess it’s just my turn” 

A saying like that has its flaws, no doubt,  but I think that it does do 3 really important things. And interestingly enough, it’s in this refined way of how to interact with our non just world that I found why I should be a good person in the first place.

1. It depersonalizes misfortune

A year after being thrown into prison, Boethius is executed on false charges of treason.

That feels pretty personal. 

As I’m sure it did to his wife and 2 sons, left wondering why their beloved husband and father was killed for a crime he did not commit.

When the pain is personal, we want a personal reason. We want to attribute cause and intention to the things that happen in our lives. 

And while the lucky few among us may actually find some answers for the events that happen in our lives – he broke my heart because he just wasn’t ready, she betrayed my trust because she thought I had betrayed her’s first, they fought but the sickness was just too aggressive  – when we try and get more than that human little ‘w’ “why” and search for the philosophical big ‘W’ “Why”, I don’t think it’s wrong to say that none of us will ever find an answer to that question. At least not in this lifetime.

So, instead of it happening to me…perhaps it just happened.

No cosmic vendetta or heavenly judgment. It just happened. 

And this time, it was just my turn to be on the other end of that happening.

1. It connects me with humanity

James Baldwin said it like this

Nobody wants to feel like they’re going through the game of life by themselves. Worse than hurting, is feeling like you’re the only one who’s hurting. 

But if it’s my turn today, that means it was somebody else’s turn yesterday.

So when I say “I guess it’s just my turn”, what I’m really doing is acknowledging  my place in the game – acknowledging my share of humanity.

Just as I accepted the good, I must accept the bad, believing (or hoping) that it’s the bad and the struggle and the pain that makes humanity beautiful all the same.

1. It frees me to do good and be good for the right reasons

So why do good at all?

That is our (my) million dollar question right?

Whether our fortunes are dictated by the random chance of fortune’s wheel or even by the unknowable plans of an all powerful God, we’re left in the same place: doing good with no sense of certainty that our good deeds will be rewarded … at least not in this lifetime.

So why do good – why be good – when you could just do whatever you want instead and things end up the same regardless of whether you lived your life as a saint or sinner?

Boethius himself poses a related question to Lady Philosophy: why aren’t the good rewarded and why aren’t the wicked punished?

Well the answer depends on what you consider reward and punishment.

“Whereas if a good man rejoiced in a glory which he received from outside, then could another, or even he, may be, who granted it, carry it away.

 But since honesty grants to every good man its own rewards, he will only lack his reward when he ceases to be good. 

And lastly, since every reward is sought for the reason that it is held to be good, who shall say that the man, who possesses goodness, does not receive his reward?

As, therefore, honesty is itself the reward of the honest, so wickedness is itself the punishment of the wicked.

Stronger are those dread poisons which can drag a man out of himself, which work their way within: they hurt not the body, but on the mind their rage inflicts a grievous wound. 

Then I answered: ‘I confess that I think it is justly said that vicious men keep only the outward bodily form of their humanity, and, in the attributes of their souls, are changed to beasts.”5

When we decouple goodness from any specific outcome,  when we free ourselves from the expectation of a just world and embrace a more random world, we elevate the process of goodness to the reward. In doing good, though we may not get external riches, we strengthen and sanctify our souls and our hearts. And it’s our souls and our hearts that house our humanity.

Plainly put, we should do good and be good solely for the sake of goodness.

Now I’m sure that sounds as fluffy and soft and unsatisfactory to you as it did to me. It kind of feels like a cop out answer – “be good because being good is good for your ~soul~”.

But I also believe it happens to be the right answer.

Sure we can bolster this with some religion and say that we’ll eventually get our reward in heaven, and sure there’s research that show how doing good makes us happier and healthier, but more than that, I truly do believe you’ll just feel better if you’re a good person. You’ll just feel more human, and more connected to other humans.

And I really hope that’s reason enough.

So while earlier we learned that when misfortune befalls us, we should humbly accept our  share of humanity.

Now, when we choose to be good, even in the face of inevitable misfortune, we proudly keep our share of humanity.

HOLD YOUR HEAD. GUARD YOUR HEART.

Proverbs 4:23 says “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”

Big Sean said “Hold your head. Guard your heart. In my life those were the hardest parts”. Pretty sure Big Sean was talking about love, but the lesson remains all the same.

When Fortuna decides that it’s your turn, hold your head high. Know that you’re not alone and the bad times won’t last forever.

And when you’re tempted to do wrong, feeling like there’s no point in playing fair if this game called life won’t play fair either, choose good and guard your heart. Because from it flows all of your humanity. 

Footnotes

1. Andre C. & Velasquez M (1990). The Just World Theory. Issues in Ethics 3(2). https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/the-just-world-theory/

2. Boethius (2009). The Consolation of Philosophy (Cooper, W.V., Trans.).Ex-Classics Project. (Original Work published in 523)

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.