What Does It Mean To Be A Good Person?

When Our Best Is Terrible

Hi Friends,

A few days ago Meg and I had an experience with an angry neighbor that reminded me of an encounter I had at the airport many years ago with a man I’ve affectionately come to refer to as, The Asshole At The Airport. The Asshole At The Airport was so enraged I could see right through his temples to his steaming blood. The man made a scene as if he believed the Southwest employees could stop the storm themselves, reach into the air and tear the lightning bolts out of every part of the sky between him and where he needed to be. If I had to guess where the man needed to be, I would have said an investors meeting on the top floor of an office building that went so high up he couldn’t help but look down at everyone.

I’ll be honest— I  wanted to tear my hands from my pockets and show the man every move I learned watching professional wrestling in junior high. But I did my best to do what the rest of the line was doing—tipping the Southwest employees with my smile. Throwing karmic twenties from the back of the line, and saying thank you fifteen times when they booked me on a flight for the following day. 

I never forgot about The Asshole at the Airport. Thought about him a few times a year, usually when getting flipped off in traffic, someone’s raging middle finger aimed like a gun at god. Then, years later, watching a friend pack a suitcase for a flight, his eyes clouded up. Panic rolled across his face like a haunted storm.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, 

“I’m terrified I’m going to be an asshole to somebody at the airport,” my friend said. “I want so badly to be kind.”

That day, the turbulence in my friend’s voice set a control tower in my chest blinking, and a conversation I’d had with my therapist many years earlier began to land…

“I suspect everyone is doing the best they can almost all of the time,” my therapist said.

“Then most people’s best is terrible,”  I responded.

“Right. But that doesn’t mean they’re not doing their best.” 

For many years, I had nothing but resistance to this idea for a long list of reasons.  I feared that it would lead to a lack of accountability. I imagined people who were doing a lot of damage in the world using it as an emergency exit to escape responsibility. I also feared that if I believed people were largely doing their best, I would become someone who would have more compassion for the asshole at the airport than for the genuinely kind Southwest agents who had to withstand his rage. 

A couple of months ago, while on a podcast, I was asked how I define a good person. My answer surprised me. I didn’t say, “Someone who is kind.” Instead I said,  “Someone who is trying to be kind.” 

I want to pose a question to you all today. And to be clear, it’s a question that I have not yet been able to answer for myself and continue to regularly explore: If you knew that the Asshole at the Airport had tried his very best to not be an asshole, what, if anything, would change for you in regards to your understanding of who he was? And if you were to believe that people, in general, are doing their best most of the time,  how would that impact your beliefs about the most effective ways to actively create a more just, loving and peaceful world? 

Asking the above questions unlocks a new kind of curiosity within me. It stretches my mind so much it’s like a yoga class for my psyche, and in turn, my spirit. It transports me from “The Land of I Know” to “The Land of I Don’t Know”, which, for me, is the most fertile land in existence. 

Looking forward to reading what you have to share in the comments, everyone. 

Thank you so very much for being here. 

Love, Andrea 🖤

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