I remember being told as a parent you shouldn’t tell your kids they are “good.” I always did anyway, because I felt there was this quality of character — called “good.”
My hubby would even remind me, “you’re supposed to say they are good at something, more precise…You did a good job cleaning that toilet, son.” I agree and most of the time, I link the good to something. (None of my sons ever did a great job cleaning the toilet, though.)
But there is this other feeling, the feeling of being “good.” A good soul, a good person, someone who chooses to do good.
Dennis Prager, talk-radio host, talked about what it means to be good. He said that kids today don’t have that as a goal — to be good. They want to be rich, they want to be famous, they want to be happy.
Do most people want to be good? Or just, good at something, like good at basketball, good at negotiating a tough deal….
You have to think about doing good to be good. It’s a job to be a good person — especially today.
Awhile back, my husband was on his way to a church meeting (Priesthood) with a group of men. They were traveling by car and got broadsided in an intersection by a young girl driving a BMW. My husband was sitting in the backseat where the impact occurred. Luckily, no one was hurt. Well, my husband’s little finger was hurt, but he was young and recovered quickly. One of the guys in the group was a PI attorney (personal injury) and offered to steer him to the right doc and encouraged him to sue — “you can get some money for this, it’s legit.”
My husband declined. He could have been killed, true, but he wasn’t. He was ok. The attorney claimed he had good reason. Is that good, even though it is legal? We could have used the money.
Dennis believes it is wrong to visit stores and be waited-on, but without the intention of buying their product. (You plan to go home and buy it on the internet.) I’m guilty of that. I did that with my Dyson vacuum. I was a little bad. I never really thought about that.
What characteristics constitute being good — honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion?
I saw the statistics on students that cheat today.
It’s overwhelming how much cheating has increased and become accepted. In 1940, 20% of college students admitted to cheating. Today, that number is 75% to 98%. Nine out of ten middle schoolers say they have copied someone else’s homework, two-thirds say they have cheated on exams.
And teachers and administrators cheat too — two-thirds say they cheated on their No Child Left Behind testing. (Caveon Test Security)
We have to work on it — being good.
