Thoughts on living right.

[Harmless]

Whoa, wait, I know you've said a lot already, but before you back down, answer one more question I have in mind. Please.

If you're looking for the right way to live, do you believe that the right way to live involves some sort of freedom and lack of constriction? Because if that were the case, wouldn't there be more than one right way to live?

[Doram]

What I am looking for is the right foundation. I am looking for the right core values that, when applied to any situation, results in correct action. I am looking for these things at the base level, so that it restricts the total choices to generally constructive ones, while still allowing for detailed and customized responses to all the varied and unique situations in life. If you are always starting at the right spots, you have much higher chances of finishing at the right spots. It's a framework that you can rattle around in throughout the whole decision making process, criteria you can use for bouncing bad ideas out of the general pool of possibilities.

Yes, I want it to allow for freedom of a kind. You can be a good person while working in any field of study. You can be a good person in any place in the world. You can be a good person no matter who you are, or where you came from. The only restriction I am looking to make is being a good person. I am looking for every tool possible to ensure, to the highest consistency possible, that I, or anybody I am advising, is being a good person every time I make a decision about anything.

Yes, I understand failure exists, and can never be completely eliminated, mostly because this is a rich and complex world we live in, and there will always be things that we do not know that will impact the affects of what we try to do. That means that the perfect goal of 100% goodness is impossible. BUT, if I can get that into the 90% range, or hell, if I can make sure that it is at least more than 50% of the time, I have made the world a better place.

When I define what it means to be a good person, I mean this: A good person reinforces the good things in the world. General happiness, general responsibility, general engaged involvement, general safety, general satisfaction, general community, general learning and growth. A good person understands the bad things in the world, as much as possible, but knows to put them in their place. Bad feelings exist, like sadness, frustration, anger, jealousy, and all their descendents like depression, vindictiveness, violence, malice, and manipulation, but the good person knows that those feelings are never a good thing to base any action on, and will look at those feelings in themselves and others, use compassion to accept them for what they are, and try to find out the source of those feelings as problems to be solved, so that the original sources of those feelings can be fixed as much as possible, with the ultimate goal of moving past those feelings to better ones, by letting them go if a problem cannot be fixed or eliminating those feelings by solving the problem. A good person understands that things like destruction, death, failure, and loss are NOT bad things, simply part of the nature of life and the learning process, and should never be a barrier to moving forward with your life. A good person understands that time and change are intertwined, and there is no stopping change, and strives to make sure that if change must happen, it will be change towards the good, and always moves forward, and encourages all around them to keep moving. A good person does this by understanding context and perspective to be able to maneuver a mind around the problem to the right angle to see the path to a better life. Understanding that most everything in life is a tool that can be used for good or bad, and being creative enough to make a tool doing bad things into one that will do the good necessary in the situation. Learning to thoroughly see and understand the good and the bad in life, and identify each for what it is, so that the path to happiness can be made to glow like the sun in retrospect. And travel that path, and encourage others on it as well. Understanding the value and wonder and power of the universe we live in, treasuring it, nurturing it, and enjoying it at every opportunity.

And all this for one other thing that is deep down at the bottom of all this:

This is your life. You are powerful and shape it with every decision you make. No, you cannot control everything, but you can control some things, and if you are trying to be good, you must take control of the things that you can control: your perspective, and your actions. And, more than that, why just sit in misery and abuse? Why not try to make it a happy life. Why not try to make it a successful life. Why not try to make it a good life, that makes the lives of others around you good lives too, when you can. Goodness is not an origin, or a condition, or a trap. Goodness is a choice. Why choose anything else?

[KABOOM]

I am looking for the right core values that, when applied to any situation, results in correct action.

I'm not convinced such a thing really exists.

[Doram]

And that is why I am arguing my points. I do believe that there are ways to make being a good person easier, and that they can be used to save this world, and I want to convince as many other people as I can. Because belief is where action starts, and without belief that the world can be saved, it cannot.

I thank you for asking what questions you have. Every question I answer from every perspective it comes from, sharpens my tools. Someday soon, I hope, they will be sharp enough to really start cutting some of the pain, misery and abuse out of this world.

[Harmless]

Well, with enough knowledge one can make a better, informed decision that helps lead to more correct actions. So it's certainly possible, but not at all easy to achieve. It's why we have the word 'apology' in our vocabulary, after all.

Thank you Doram. I'm glad to have this discussion, really has given me more to consider.