[mulan]

I I have been obsessing about being a good person, but I don't know if I am setting too perfect standards. What is the matter with being jealous sometimes, with being selfish sometimes, with being rude sometimes? Do I have to be always perfect to be a good person? Do I have to be a good person to be worthy?
And how about you? What do you think that defines if someone is worthy or unworthy? Is there such a thing?
Isn't everything relative? So why we keep saying mean things to ourselves?
Just try to give me an irrefutable reason that proves you are worse than most people... I don't think there is any.

Well...we're human and we make mistakes. Our mistakes are not the sum total of who we are.

I have asked the same question many times, mulan. Who is the jury of our lives?

I think it's up to us.

[Fuzzybear]

I think so... (good vs bad)

It's a very complex subject (explored by some "great thinkers")

Worthy or unworthy? It's a construct and not a very useful one imo

[Clara22]

What is a good person to you?

[ScientiaOmnisEst]

Im very much inclined to think there's criteria, I certainly think about it a lot. I know (or at least have a good idea of) what I think of as good or worthy, though plenty of people tell me my standards are too high. I don't see the point in being happy with mediocrity - certainly no one else likes it.

In our reality, as harsh as it might sound, a person's worth is measured by their contributions to others. If you offer something to someone, then you worth something to them. If you offer others nothing, then probably you worth nothing to them. All relationships are covered by mutual interests. Which leads us to good and bad people. Good people I think, and in that light, are those who systematically progress their interests while helping others progress their interests, i.e., cooperative people. Bad people are those who systematically try to progress their interests while harming others' interests, i.e., strictly selfish people. Interests could mean anything from feeling good to financial profits. I believe that we are all selfish, but selfish people can be cooperative, and it seems they have to be in order to survive in a stable and fair environment, but at the same time it's the biggest struggle.

[mulan]

Originally Posted by Clara22

What is a good person to you?

I feel that my answear is a little bit basic.
Generally speaking a good person is someone that works for the greater good. That is nice and kind to others, that has a good heart, say and does helpfull things for other people. Someone that doesn't take advantage of anyone and take other people feelings in account so he doesn't hurt them nor does he offend anyone... Someone that helps others even when it's not convenient to him.
Someone that treats everybody with respect wether it's a friend or a stranger...
The list goes on. But you can get the idea.

Well, this is the ideal good person...
The ok good person is someone that summing up their total actions did more good then harm while his worst action haven not been that bad. They did not permanently damage something or didn't do any damage on porpuse or the person regrets the bad things he/she did.

But this is very generalistic... And in my abstract concept there are a lot of ifs, that I could only apply in very concrete scenarios.

[Clara22]

Hi Mulan,
I agree with you. But as we are just human beings we cannot be perfectly good. When we fail at incarnating our values we start again. I think that this is what makes us good people: we have these values but we recognize that sometimes we fail at behaving according to these values. We acknowledge with humility that we are just humans and then we start again.

Originally Posted by mulan

I I have been obsessing about being a good person, but I don't know if I am setting too perfect standards. What is the matter with being jealous sometimes, with being selfish sometimes, with being rude sometimes? Do I have to be always perfect to be a good person? Do I have to be a good person to be worthy?
And how about you? What do you think that defines if someone is worthy or unworthy? Is there such a thing?
Isn't everything relative? So why we keep saying mean things to ourselves?
Just try to give me an irrefutable reason that proves you are worse than most people... I don't think there is any.

I've been like you, questioning my morals, actions, etc...
The best thing for you to do, as I do, is read about the current society. I personally read about Gen Y's in my country, it gives me great info about which way is best to behave these days.

The following is dark, so tread carefully:

An answer to your questions of definitions, doing wrong things, defining worthy/unworthy... no union, that's the answer.
We were once majorly exposed to guidelines of social behaviors called "The Bible". But religion is fading from our lives, so mutual guidelines are increasingly fading. The most guidelines we're getting more and more nowadays are through commercials and propaganda, which are all scattered and swirled around the globe, and as for their nature, serve self-interest and money.