Thursday, September 12, 2024

MRW, What is a Good Person? Definition Writing Assignment

 By Nate Feldman

Growing up, we are all taught the importance of being a good person in our societies and the world as a whole.  Ideally, you get these lessons from your teachers, parents, and spiritual leaders.  However, considering that many people would say they are good people, and these people are not exactly the same in their behavior, it’s challenging to find the exact meaning of a good person. 

Ideally, a good person is someone who is good to others.  When I say good to others, I mean they treat people fairly and they treat them with compassion and empathy.  There is the old saying, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  In other words, treat people the way you wish to be treated.  A good person thinks of how others are feeling when he or she behaves in a certain way.

You could argue that a good person is also someone who treats others well and is humble about it.  In other words, if they do something nice for another person, they don’t boast about it and tell the world how nice they are.  A really good person does things because it is the right thing, not because it will make him or her more popular.  However, I wouldn’t say people who do nice things and brag about it are necessarily bad people.  It’s better that you boast about helping people than boast about hurting people.  But, the better way is to not show off about yourself.

The biggest challenge about defining a good person is that some people are good to some, but they are not good to everyone.  Perhaps they are generous and giving with their friends, but with people they don’t know or perhaps people from a different community, city, or country they have different ways of behaving.  I would say a good person has the same way of treating all people, and not just for who he or she thinks deserves it.  If you really are good, you try to be as fair as possible with all people you meet. 

Of course, being a good person doesn’t mean you don’t ever do bad things.  Good people, like others, are flawed.  Perhaps, on a bad day, they can get angry at someone.  Even sometimes they shout or are aggressive with others.  There might be people who met them who see them as bad people because they met them at the wrong time.  But, this doesn’t mean they are bad people.  They might have had a bad day or made a bad mistake.  So, I’ll say a good person is one who will admit their mistakes and will work hard to fix them.

Being a good person is not always easy as there are many temptations that pull us to doing wrong in this world.  But, ideally a good person is one who tries their best to be good to others, and when they slip up, they work hard to admit their mistakes.


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By Nate Feldman