Looking at the Good

Good Friday is not particularly meaningful to me as a non-Christian, but the idea of doing and recognizing the good in others always has. If Christ was believed to be a master teacher, I believe that his life of doing good acts is a great example of role modeling and obviously so do millions and millions of others who do practice Christianity. It is then also puzzling to me that the practice of good acts or deeds is seen as a sort of negative by some people. Or worse, as something that a chosen few can do. A life of kindness and goodness does seem to be an extremely high bar to live up to and easily fail at doing with perfection.

That is why I don't try to be intentionally good. That is to say, I intend to be a good person, but also know that I will fail at it a lot. To be intentionally good is an act of masochism in my book. If you fail at your intention, you will feel like a perpetual failure or have to seek out some kind of divine forgiveness to ameliorate your failing. Who wants that kind of pressure?

For me, if I see a person I can help, I give it a shot. If I am unaware that a person needs help, I don't berate myself for missing it. The only thing that is a gray area for me is when I'm tired, hungry, or depressed. I don't do much good when I'm in those three states. It is possible I'd even do more harm than good on an empty stomach. And I don't think I'm alone in this. We all seem to have our limits on our goodness owing to a myriad of factors--like if the kids are crying or if The Bachelor Finale is going on and so on. Heck, even Jesus must have had limits when he said "It is finished." I mean how much good can one person do anyway?