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Right Thing, Right Now: Good Values. Good Character. Good Deeds. (The Stoic Virtues Series)

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Right Thing, Right Now: Good Values. Good Character. Good Deeds. (The Stoic Virtues Series)

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Highlights & Notes

“Virtue” can seem old-fashioned. In fact, virtue—arete—translates to something very simple and very timeless: Excellence. Moral. Physical. Mental. In the ancient world, virtue was comprised of four key components. Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.

Courage, bravery, endurance, fortitude, honor, sacrifice… Temperance, self-control, moderation, composure, balance… Justice, fairness, service, fellowship, goodness, kindness… Wisdom, knowledge, education, truth, self-reflection, peace…

Doing the right thing almost always takes courage, just as moderation is impossible without the wisdom to know what is worth choosing. What good is courage if not applied to justice? What good is wisdom if it doesn’t make us more modest?

Virtue is something we do. It’s something we choose.

Justice, that brightest adornment of virtue by which a good person gains the title of good. —Cicero

Nothing is right if we’re not doing what is right.

We are concerned with what’s lawful, we fight for “our rights” a lot more than what is right.

“Justice means much more than the sort of thing that goes on in law courts,” C. S. Lewis would remind listeners in a famous lecture series. “It is the old name for everything we should now call ‘fairness’; it includes honesty, give and take, truthfulness, keeping promises, and all that side of life.”

Until we stop debating, we can’t start doing. We keep debating so we don’t have to start doing.

That is, the line between good and evil, right and wrong, ethical and unethical, fair and unfair. What you will do. What you won’t. What you must do. How you do it. Whom you do it for. What you’re willing to give for them.

“Love thy neighbor as thyself,” Hillel told the man. “All the rest is commentary.” Care about others. Treat them as you would wish to be treated. Not just when it’s convenient or recognized, but especially when it isn’t. Even when it’s not returned. Even when it costs you.

“Life is not meaningless for the man who considers certain actions wrong simply because they are wrong, whether or not they violate the law,” he once explained. “This kind of moral code gives a person a focus, a basis on which to conduct himself.”

Because that’s what justice should be—not a noun but a verb. Something we do, not something we get. A form of human excellence. A statement of purpose. A series of actions.

Do what is right. Do it right now. For yourself. For others. For the world.

The virtue of a person is measured not by his outstanding efforts but by his everyday behavior. —Blaise Pascal

The Stoics said that the chief task in life is to focus on what you control. Injustice and unfairness and outright cruelty may well rule the world, but it is within the power of each of us to be an exception to that rule. To be a person of rectitude and dignity.

Our code frees us, gives us meaning, and, most of all, makes a positive difference.

“If it’s not right, do not do it,” Truman underlined in his well-worn copy of Meditations, “if it is not true, do not say it…. First do nothing thoughtlessly or without a purpose. Secondly, see that your acts are directed to a social end.”

Truman would recount, “I have believed in honor, ethics, and right living as its own reward.”

them.” But that’s the point. You’re either the kind of person who draws ethical lines like that or you’re not. You either respect the code or you don’t.

where “machines are ahead of morals by some centuries,”

We must understand: Justice is not this thing we demand of other people, but something we demand of ourselves. It’s not a thing we talk about, it’s a way of life. Nor must it be always an abstract, cosmic thing. It can be practical, accessible, and personal. Indeed, where else better to start?

Justice can be… …the standards we hold ourselves to …the way we treat people …the promises we keep …the integrity we bring to our words …the loyalty and generosity we give to our friends …the opportunities we accept (and turn down) …the things we care about …the difference we make for people.

Is there anyone we admire who doesn’t try to live up to their obligations? Who doesn’t keep their word? We keep our word to ourselves—that’s discipline. We keep our word to others because it’s justice.

It’s natural to experience doubt. It’s natural to hope it resolves itself, or even to ask for grace or latitude. To want an exemption or a pass. But in the end, there should be no escaping a word freely given and taken, a contract signed in good faith. You said it, they’re counting on you, do it. Even if it doesn’t seem like a big deal. Even if it’s going to be difficult or painful. We will regret many things in this life. But we’ll never regret being the kind of person who keeps their word. Who swears truthfully with their actions the promises they made with their mouth.

How many truly honest people do you know? People who tell the truth even when it’s inconvenient? Who make it clear where they stand? Who don’t equivocate? Could you honestly put yourself in that category?

An honest person keeps their word. They don’t hide behind jargon. They don’t sneak around. If there’s going to be a delay or a problem, they’ll tell you. If they have concerns, they’ll voice them—they won’t nod their head, only to say “I told you so” later. They don’t fool themselves with wishful thinking or the desire to be well received. They accept that, like Cassandra or the messengers in Antony and Cleopatra, they won’t always be believed or appreciated.

“Speak the truth as you see it,” Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, “but with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.”

The truth hurts enough by itself. You don’t have to try to be hurtful.

In matters big or small, public or private, convenient or inconvenient, whether it will be rewarded or punished, tell the truth. Be a bastion of truth in a time of lies. Say not through me. It is not just the right thing to do, it is your job. As an accountant. As an officer. As a receptionist. As a spouse. As a human being.

Will we handle our shit? Or do we expect someone else to? Are we someone who can be counted on? Or not? Are we someone who does a great job…or the minimum? Do we care about the consequences of our actions or just our own self-interest? Who we choose to be affects more than just us. It ripples out into the world. Realizing this is not just clarifying but deeply empowering. What we do matters. We matter.

We might not have signed the social contract, but each of us inherited it. Each of us is bound by its obligations, its duties, its expectations.

“It’s your turn to be the centre,” he said, “to give others what was given to you for so long. You’ve got to give security to young people and peace to your husband, and a sort of charity to the old. You’ve got to let the people who work for you depend on you. You’ve got to cover up a few more troubles than you show, and be a little more patient than the average person, and do a little more instead of a little less than your share. The light and glitter of the world is in your hands….” “It is your turn,” he tells her, “to make the fire.”

We have to hold ourselves to a high standard, higher than perhaps even the organization itself. And we have to be brave enough to willingly accept the consequences when we fall short of those standards, in fact, calling them out even when nobody notices.

Letting the cashier know that they forgot to ring you up for something, letting the customer know that you overcharged them, pointing out to the ref that they made the wrong call to your advantage…it’s not free to do this…but freely paid, it’s better than being a free rider. Better than being a cheater. No one would know but us…but that’s who counts, right? That’s who you have to look at in the mirror at home.

It doesn’t matter if you could get away with it, because that doesn’t get you anywhere. It doesn’t get you anything worth having.

We may lose because of this…but we won’t lose what’s important. We’ll win what really matters. We’ll win the right way.

“is that glory and accomplishment are of far less importance than the creation of character and the individual good life.”

“Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being,” he writes, “remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation.”

concentrate on one thing and one thing alone: to do what is right and to behave like a good man. Not winning battles. Not making money. Not making his mark. But doing good, being good. Being fair. Being decent. Being honest. Being dependable.

We seem only to vie with each other for professional success, not for kindness or civic-mindedness, for fame, not friendship.

But what would it look like if more people decided to try to see… …who could be the most trustworthy? …who lived a more ethical life? …who helped the most people? …who could forgive the most grievous wrong? …who prevented the battle instead of won it? …who had the smallest carbon footprint, not the biggest house? …who raised the kindest kids, not whose got into the best college?

There is an old aphorism: It’s easier to be a great man than a good one. Certainly there are more of the former than the latter.

Each of us has to make a decision right now about where we are going to put our efforts, what we’re going to work toward. Because what a person measures, goes another expression, gets managed.

By focusing inward, he made his mark externally. The man who wrote in Meditations that doing the right thing today was far more valuable than posthumous fame managed to get both. This is more than irony. It is the point. He was good for so long that he became great.

That fact that we’re so outraged when someone isn’t transparent with us should be enough to demand from us that we be more transparent than we might like to be.

In recovery circles they say that we’re only as sick as our secrets.

If we’re inclined to hide it, we probably shouldn’t do it. If we dread the publicity, maybe we’re not living or doing right. We should strive for the opposite. We want people to see what we’re doing. We want to be the city on the hill. We should be the kind of person who the more they hear about us, the more they respect and admire us. Let us live in a way that makes us proud. Let us act during the day in a way that allows us to sleep at night.

“Never hurt a man who is working for his living.”

Part and parcel of justice is the understanding that other people are sovereign individuals with dignity and value, and that because of these things, we must treat them well. Respect is justice. It’s something everyone deserves. Whether they’re important or not, how we treat them says everything about who we are.

How we treat people in ordinary circumstances is one thing. How we treat them when we’re tired, when we’re stressed, when the weight of the world is on our shoulders…when someone has just screwed up, just cost us something serious. This says so much.

“It seems ridiculous,” Albert Camus wrote, “but the only way to fight the plague is with decency.” This is true for every disaster and enemy and situation: The way to beat it is to prove yourself superior to it, to not let it change your values, to not let it devalue other people, even as the tragedy or virus does precisely that. Decency, he said, “helps men rise above themselves.”

“If a fella can’t be patient and considerate of the people who are actually doin’ the work for him,” he once said, “then he’s not any good, and I don’t like him.”

Sure, the boss is entitled to change plans—but are they aware that this means someone else has to call their spouse and cancel that anniversary dinner? That this means someone else has to work harder, longer, under more stress? Nice words are great…raises are better…considerate choices are best.

In a world of awfulness, of injustice, of cruelty and corruption, ordinary decency stands out.

People are having a hard time out there. Let’s not contribute to anyone’s burdens. Let’s try to lighten them when we can. Other people want the same things we want. Dignity. Security. Respect. Freedom. Happiness. We might all look different and live very different lives, but we should remember that all of us feel pressed for time, feel inadequate or insecure. Let’s treat people accordingly. Let’s do what we can. Let’s be a small light in a dark world.

It’s a powerful thing, isn’t it? When someone does their duty? When they take their job seriously—even in the face of private pressure or public opprobrium. When they put the details aside, when they say, As long as I have this authority, wear this coat, bear this license, or have this badge, I am going to do what’s right. It says something about the world today that the phrase “I was just doing my job” is more likely to be an excuse for disturbing behavior than to be the explanation of heroic behavior. It’s a way of letting yourself off the hook when really what a job, what a duty, is all about is what it demands of you, from you.

‘Given my role here, how should I behave?’ ”

Sometimes doing your job requires extraordinary measures. Other times it’s very ordinary—but it’s always heroic.

We do our job whether it’s recognized or appreciated because we signed a kind of oath when we took it. We signed a contract. We put on the uniform. They paid us money. Now we have to hold up our end of the bargain.

Keep the people safe. Show up. Be honest. Care. Act like a fiduciary. Even if you aren’t legally obligated to be one, you must obligate yourself to a standard higher than the one trodden by the crowd. You swore an oath to yourself. Now keep it.

Just because everyone else does it a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the right way. Just because it’s the way it’s always been done doesn’t mean we should go along with it.

A decision “you make in your life purely for money doesn’t usually end up going the right way,”

You gotta know your weaknesses and make decisions so you can be strong.

“People talk of the courage of convictions, but in actual life a man’s duty to his family may make a rigid course seem a selfish indulgence of his own righteousness.”

Integrity is living by what you think is right. Not what you can get away with, not what everyone else is doing.

It’s not a real principle unless it costs you money. Integrity ceases to be an abstraction when life presents you the opportunity to act on it. Integrity then becomes real. It is proven. You have proven yourself responsible and responsible to it.

Integrity may sometimes be relegated to the drawer labeled “too hard,” but life is much harder, much sadder without it.

To whom much is given, the lesson from the parable goes, much is expected.

Do your best. Become what you can be. You owe the world that much.

“The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for.” Yet too many people, he wrote, like that third servant, were afraid of themselves, of the task they had been given. Will you become what you’re meant to be? Will you go where you are most needed? That is the question.

Certainly that reaching, that stretching is what gets us closer to heaven. But down here, still on earth, what you don’t want, what people should never find themselves needing to say about you, is the most damnable indictment there is: They could have been more. They could have done more. They wasted their gifts.

The answer is the same way that we all do it. By not even thinking about it at all. By telling ourselves nothing that can be done. By telling ourselves that they’ll understand…because they’d do the same thing in our position. By telling ourselves it’s for the greater good. We put the small town where we’re from in the rearview. We break away from the people who discovered us now that we’re big shots. We leave a friend hanging because they’re radioactive. We ditch a longtime supplier when someone offers a few pennies of savings. We rationalize the knife as it goes in. We turn our eyes away and let someone else do it. Loyalty is expensive. It’s inconvenient. It gets in the way. It’s messy, it’s complicated, it’s hard to explain.

The thing about loyalties is that we never have just one of them—our obligations are layered, and occasionally in conflict with each other. We are loyal to friends, but we also owe loyalty to our family, whom we have to provide for. We are loyal to someone for whom we’ve worked for a long time, but we also owe a loyalty to our work, to our cause, which is at risk of being jeopardized.

Would you want a president who wasn’t loyal? Would you bet your franchise on an athlete who sees the whole business as transactional, has no affinity for the city or the team? Would you want to invest your money with someone who leaves people hanging because helping them would be inconvenient? No, you wouldn’t.

We don’t control what other people do. We don’t control whether we live in a time of mob justice. We don’t control the fact that these decisions are agonizing and complex and that there is no guidebook. We control what we do.

we have an obligation… …to the people who helped us …to the places that made us …to those who have been loyal to us …to the truth and to our cause …to the downtrodden and besieged and the friendless. We can’t wash our hands. We can’t stand on the sidelines. We can’t abandon ship.

We don’t have to condone what they did. Loyalty does not mean protecting people from the consequences of their actions. Still, the person who is in the middle of watching their life fall apart is a person we should be sympathetic to—that we should, if not clothe and feed, at least send a nice note to. Even if we’re disappointed or even angry with them. Even if they did wrong. We can at least call and see how they’re doing. When everyone else is turning away, we lean in. When everyone else starts thinking of themselves, we can refuse to betray our commitment. We can love them as a person, even if we hate what they did.

Loyalty is something we give. It’s not something we expect. Nor is it something we ought to expect to always be understood. We do it because it’s right.

Such is the power of a north star. Such is the power of values. They are, like discipline, a kind of destiny. Or a curse.

Discipline can feel constraining, like it’s telling you what you can’t do. Justice is something different. It is an ideal to aspire to, something higher to aim at. That’s what a north star is. Something to reach toward. Something beyond the horizon, lifting our gaze up instead of down.

“The man who is just and firm of purpose can be shaken from his stern resolve neither by the rage of the people who urge him to crime nor by the countenance of the threatening tyrant.” Isn’t that what you want?

Their why allowed them to bear, as the saying goes, just about any how.

What a tremendous burning and blinding light ambition can be where there is something behind it, and what a puny flickering sparkler when there isn’t.

Cash is a bad north star…but an easy one to default to if you don’t have anything better. Ego. Fame. Power. Dominance. These things might lead you to the top…but they will also lead you astray. They corrupt. They corrode. Loyalty. A love of the game. A desire to keep your hands clean. The confidence to compete fairly with the best. Integrity.

There can be only one way to fight the general evil of life: It is in the moral, religious and spiritual perfection of your own life. —LEO Tolstoy

Let us not prolong our difficulties. Let us not shirk our obligations. Eventually, we’ll have to do the right thing—make the changes, make the apology, make the hard decision, make the first move. So why not just get it over with? We’ll have to pay the price at some point. So let’s start making the payments. Not later. But right now.

Justice is the virtue that makes us useful to ourselves as well as to others. —Socrates

It is the perennial problem of social movements—how do the voiceless use their voice to effect change?

“the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

Slavery was a product of capitalism, and capitalism would be used to kill it.

One man, one idea, millions of lives changed, untold suffering prevented. A small group of committed individuals can in fact change the world, and they don’t have to burn anything or anyone down in the process.

Once again, change happens when people get outraged about other people’s rights.

The strength, the moral righteousness of the protestors was made unassailable, even as—no, because—the blows landed on their exposed bodies.

“One of the things that I have learned over the years,” Diane Nash said, “is that you really can’t change anyone but yourself and what we did in the South was change ourselves from people who could be segregated into people who could no longer be segregated.

Justice is not a thing that happens, it’s something that is made, that is continuing to be made, even as you read this. By people who get together, by people who care.

Such is the power of each and every one of us in the moment we happen to be born. We have the power… …to care …to help others …to learn how to create change …to be generous …to build bonds …to stand up for the little guy. But it’s not a question of power, it’s a question of will. Will you?

Goddamn it, Joe, you’ve got to be kind.”[*] Kind to strangers. Kind to people who you work with or work for you. Kind to someone who just made a mistake. Kind to both customers and vendors. Kind to someone you dislike. Kind to the future, to generations not yet born.

The Stoics said we should try to see every person we meet as an opportunity for kindness. This is a wonderful change in perspective. It transforms daily life, as challenging and noxious as it can be, into a series of chances, one after another, to be nice, to do something nice, to be considerate, to make a positive difference. It doesn’t matter that we’re tired. That we’re busy. That we were ourselves just treated with unkindness. Respond with kindness. Err on the side of compassion. Do the helpful thing.

And when we survey our lives, we will think the same thing. We’ll forget all our reasons. We’ll forget all the causes. We’ll forget what had been done to us. All we’ll wish is that we’d been a little nicer, a little less clever, and a lot more kind. Well? Well, it’s not too late.

The problem is that it’s so easy to stay in our bubbles. To not see what we don’t want to see. We don’t do the math—on what it would be like to live on such a wage, on where all these raw materials are coming from, on where our money is going. We ignore the smell…or let people cover it up for us. (There’s a joke that the Royal Family thinks the world smells like fresh paint.)

We need to become vacuums for the lived experiences of other people—what makes it hard to be them, where they struggle, where they have been mistreated, where their daily lives are different than ours.

Did you not know? Or did you just not care to know? We cannot fix what we won’t face. We cannot stop what we refuse to acknowledge.[*]

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

When you shrug at the suffering of someone else, you invite it, inevitably, on yourself and people you love down the line.

Remember that you can commit injustice by doing nothing also, Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself in Meditations.

By helping others, you help yourself—not just because we’re all part of that garment of mutuality, but because a government and society that knows how to help one group is going to be less likely to fail catastrophically when it has to help a different group—or a lot of groups. By indifference, you also commit self-harm…but by the time you realize it, it will be too late.

We can despair of the whole, we can tilt at the windmills of enormous problems, we can talk endlessly of utopian futures…or we can get to work.

It’s small but it is not nothing. In fact, it’s everything.

We begin with ourselves, our own standards, the things we immediately control. How we run our lives, our business, how we do our work. Next, we focus on what is closest to us, with the good we can do in front of us, the first bit of progress we can make. Make one person happier. Help make one thing better.

This is small but it is no small thing. In fact, if we all do that, the world is changed.

The difficult undertakings in the world all start with what is easy. The great undertakings in the world all begin with what is small.

Because honestly, we have no idea where things will end up, where this thing we started will take us.

As one civil rights marcher said when they were asked if the movement would win: “We won when we started.“ That’s right. Let us begin.

Look, it would be wonderful if causes succeeded because they were right. It would be wonderful if pioneers and barrier-breakers were supported because people cared about fairness and representation. But they don’t and that’s not how the system—or history—works.

The side with the most allies usually wins. It’s a simple as that.

You can disagree with many of a person’s beliefs. You may even hate some of the people you have to ally with.[*] But to get good things done, you’ll have to come together. That’s a fact.

Let’s destroy our enemies by converting them into friends. Let’s get enough friends to make it impossible for anyone to destroy us. We can make the world better by coming together. By coming together, the world is better.

Power rules the world. It is very hard to achieve justice without it. It’s very hard to stop injustice without it. It’s very hard to do anything without it.

Good ideas, good causes, fair notions—they are not just adopted automatically. More often than not, they have to be rammed down people’s throats. Leverage must be acquired. An overwhelming coalition of allies must be assembled. Walls have to be breached. Resistance has to be crushed. Change is scary! It means winners and losers. It involves dollars and cents, perks and privileges.

“Power per se is nothing bad. It is necessary,” Angela Merkel would explain. “Power is ‘to make’—to do something. The opposite of power is powerless. What’s the use of a good idea if I can’t execute it?” The opposite of power is powerlessness. Is that what you want?

The question to ask is: Who does not having power serve? What good does that do?

Anyone who wants to do good in this world must be a student of power. Anyone who wants to do something other than sit around and wait for change must read Machiavelli and Robert Greene.

The courage to bring force against force, power against power, is no small thing. Indeed, it is the only thing that power respects. And now that we have it, let’s use it to do what’s right.

That’s one of the ways you get allies—by looking like someone they can do business with.

Justice can be beautifully articulated by a moralist. It is unlikely, however, that they will ever be able to bring such a thing about.

Pragmatism without virtue is dangerous and hollow. Virtue without pragmatism is ineffectual and impotent.

An idealogue or a philosopher can be pure. A leader has to make decisions. A leader has to take action. They must be an idealist as well as a realist. Because they have things they have to protect.

Doing good in this world is not going to be easy. It will not be without its opponents or obstacles. We can call them names. We can despair. We can blame. Or we can get to work. Non angeli sed angli. Stop looking for angels. Start looking for angles.

When you have the shot you have to take it. People are counting on you.

What justice needs is time, money, leadership. What they need is someone who knows what they’re doing. Can you be that person? Someone competent, someone who approaches justice not as an idea but as a craft. As an occupation to always be getting better at.

Every problem must be studied. Every skill must be practiced. Every variable necessary for success—allies, funding, public support, power—must be cultivated. Impact must be measured. Decisions must be optimized. People must be held accountable. We have to hold ourselves accountable—that’s how we get better.

Generosity is something we admire. It’s something many of us wish we could be better at.

“no one ever became poor by giving.”

If you’ve been blessed, be a blessing.

Kindness is a form of generosity we can always afford. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, how much power you have (or how little), nothing is stopping you from being generous in some form or some way. How are you doing? Do you need anything? Great job. I appreciate you. These are expressions of generosity that don’t cost a thing.

To whom much is given, much is expected. And we have been given so much, each of us. All of us. What will we do with it? Who will we help? What will we give? An answer: Enough that it hurts. Enough that it challenges us. Enough that there is sacrifice in it.

The point is not how or how much, it’s that we are a blessing to others—in whatever form we can be, in whatever way is possible.

“Let the honor of your students be as dear to you as your own,” Rabbi Eleizer famously said.

Who have you given a shot? Who have you helped get ahead? More revealing, how similar to you or unlike you were these people? Yet far too often, we are more interested in how to get someone to give us a shot. Or how to get another one or a bigger one or a better one. We think that by helping others we jeopardize ourselves, as if life or work was zero-sum. Highlander syndrome says, There can only be one.

That’s the thing. Not all of us have the power to change or improve the world within our own lifetimes. By supporting, encouraging, and influencing others—including our own children—our efforts can live on. Mentor. Patron. Sponsor. Ally. Teacher. Master. Guru. Inspiration.

But what matters is that we are the candle that lights another, which lights another, which lights another. Because through this whole worlds are illuminated, delivered from darkness.

The world is unfair and cruel. Do we contribute to that? Or alleviate it? When we have power—which we all do as a collective—we have to make sure we use it for good.

Are you supporting David or Goliath? Are you fighting against tyranny or are you the tyrant? Are you a truth-teller or are you actually a troll? Freedom is essential…but the most essential freedom is the freedom from fear. Our job is to fight to make sure the vulnerable are protected and can live without fear. Because they are us and we are them.

It would be wonderful if this kind of disruption didn’t need to happen. If following the law and being on our best behavior was synonymous with doing the right thing. But that’s just not how the world works. Certainly that’s not how history has unfolded.

It means you throw yourselves into the spokes. Put yourself in front of the tanks. Be the squeaky wheel—the one who won’t shut up, the one who repeats the truth that people don’t want to hear.

Yeah, we want and need allies…but we can’t be paralyzed at the thought of creating enemies.

Good trouble does good work for good causes.

In the end, we are more likely to judge (and be judged) for trouble that wasn’t caused than the trouble that was. Don’t just go along. Don’t give the status quo more respect than it deserves. Fight. Fight to help. Fight to make things better. The goal is not to be liked. The goal is justice.

We start small. We build allies. We look out for the little guy. We have to act. We have to act, even if our impact is small, even if it is ignored, perhaps even if it feels like a suicide mission. Even if it seem like the impact will not be felt in our lifetime, we have to try.

Besides, if we can achieve our goals easily, if the changes come without resistance, are we really fighting the right battle? Defeats, setbacks, enemies? These are signs that we’ve aimed our sights high enough, that we’re after something important, something that matters. As we face them, we must keep going. We put one foot in front of the other. We follow the process, make the progress that we can. We built momentum. We keep going back. And eventually, inevitably, someone—we or someone carrying the torch we helped light—succeeds.

While Christ did not say to men, “Live for others,” he pointed out that there was no difference at all between the lives of others and one’s own life. —Oscar Wilde

We are born perfectly selfish—caring only about our own needs, our own basic survival. Yet we are given at birth the model of perfect selflessness: the unconditional love of a parent.

The bigger our circles get, the bigger our heart gets, the better the world gets. We have to realize that we are all part of one large family, each with a nature related to one another.

We have to care for those who cannot care for us—for those who do not care about us. This is our responsibility. This is our highest calling. The work of our life.

What made being alive almost worthwhile for me…was all the saints I met, who could be anywhere. By saints I meant people who behaved decently in a strikingly indecent society. —Kurt Vonnegut

“The grandest aid to development of strong, pure, beautiful character which is our aim, is the endurance of suffering,” Gandhi said in a 1909 speech.

To become independent in law, they must first become independent in fact—by breaking free mentally, spiritually, ethically. Independence then was not just an end but a means.

The power of a machine gun is muted against people who do not fear death. The power of the dollar doesn’t work against people who prize only what is free and naturally theirs. “Be careful in dealing with a man who cares nothing for sensual pleasures, nothing for comfort or praise or promotion, but is simply determined to do what he believed to be right,” a British scholar had warned of Gandhi. “He is a dangerous and uncomfortable enemy because his body which you can always conquer gives you so little purchase of his soul.”

“Men say I am a saint losing myself in politics,” he once joked. “The fact is that I am politician trying my hardest to be a saint.”

a small slip of paper that listed the seven blunders of humanity. Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Religion without sacrifice. Politics without principle.

And now, that small light in a dark room provides hope for us. We can choose to branch off from Gandhi’s coaching tree, to pick up his mantle to create a better world through… …self-sacrifice and suffering …high standards of personal conduct …friendship and tolerance …lifting up the unfortunate and vulnerable …virtuous pragmatism …the transformative power of nonviolence …forgiveness and love …and more love and more love and more love. It will be a long journey. It will be a fight whose victory we may not live to see. But the more we give to it, the more we’ll get out of it.

“When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top—credit for the good deed or a favor in return?” Marcus Aurelius would ask himself.

It’s long been said that being a good person is a thankless task…but if you’re doing it for the thanks, how good are you really?

Better to do right and go unrewarded than to do wrong and go unpunished. Besides, the doing is a reward. Feel amazing for doing an amazing thing—you don’t need anyone to tell you that you are.

Do it with a smile. Be the beautiful person who just goes through the world doing their job, doing good, never expecting or asking for anything.

Let’s just focus on doing the good we can do. Let’s forget about credit. Let’s forget about gratitude. We don’t need anyone to appreciate us, to recognize us. We do good because we are good, and everything else is extra.

There was still goodness in the world then. There is still goodness now. God, whatever that means to you, is not dead. Despair is a choice. Cynicism is an excuse. Neither create a better world.

Where will we be if you give up?

life was not worth living without hope.

We not only have to continue to hope, but we have to bring hope into the world. We have to keep dreaming. We have to carry the fire. We have to not only keep others warm but help them light their own fires.

We should strive, Seneca once said, “to treat others as you wish the gods would treat you.” Which is to say: With compassion. With endless patience. With infinite understanding. With love and generosity. God knows we need it…so at the very least we can try to give it.

Who knows if angels actually exist. What is true is that you can do something close to that here on earth. You can be one of the good ones. Especially for the people you love and care about.

Our toughest assignment is here, in these moments where humanity is rare, where goodness is on the run. It’s there that we step up, step in, stand with.

If we don’t do it, who will? If we leave them hanging, leave them alone, leave them to wither and die, what does that say? About the world? About us?

There is no justice without the ability to acknowledge mistakes and take responsibility for your actions.

Not being guilty does not absolve one of responsibility. But refusing to see it, covering it up, that does make you complicit. It makes you morally responsible when it happens again.

While we cannot change the past, we can—by refusing to deny it—do better in the future. In so doing, we begin to make amends for what has happened. And we must make these amends. We must heal and improve and set things on a better path.

While nothing can undo what has been done, we always have the opportunity to do better. We have the opportunity to become a better person as a result of what has happened, even if that is only through having to step up and own the unpleasant responsibility for it.

Our potential is not reached by running from things, it’s by grappling with them—especially the difficult ones.

The parliament of Man, the federation of the world. That’s what we belong to. That’s what we must protect.

How we treat the people who work for us, how we treat strangers, this says a lot about us. How we treat the defenseless? The voiceless? Other species? According to Gandhi, it says everything about us. Whatever you have done to the least of my brethren.

The whole world is a temple, the Stoics said. Nature is god—we commit a sacrilege when we abuse it.

By “expanding the circle,” as the philosopher Peter Singer terms it, we make the world better. We also make ourselves better.

“As the years pass,” Harvey argued, “the guy can be educated…everyone can be educated and helped. You think some people are hopeless—not me.”

“You must not lose faith in humanity,” Gandhi would later write to Amrit Kaur, India’s first health minister after independence. He was reassuring her but also reminding himself. “Humanity is an ocean. If a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

The whole premise of Gandhi’s philosophy was that there was goodness in other people—or at least in most people.

People are worse than we’d like. They are also better than we can possibly comprehend. That’s the power of grace.

Some are asked to give a little. Some a lot. Some are asked to give everything. When we have our north star, it makes it clear what we must do. Our strong sense of self allows us to be selfless. Even when it is painful, even when it is costly. Clarity, of course, does not make such a sacrifice easy.

“The most terrible thing about it,” Wilde would write from a dark prison cell not unlike the one that Malcolm knew, “is not that it breaks one’s heart.” Hearts were made to be broken, after all. The truly terrible thing about injustice, he said, is “that it turns one’s heart to stone.”

Gandhi was once asked what worried him the most in life, and his answer was simply, “the hardness of heart of the educated.”

In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius would write that “what doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.” When we close ourselves off to love and hope, naturally we experience less love and hope. “Whoever hardens their heart,” the Bible reminds us, “falls into trouble.” We create our own darkness.

Nietzsche said that those who fight monsters must see to it that they do not become one themselves.

We can’t let those sons of bitches turn us into sons of bitches. We can’t let inhumanity deprive us of our humanity. We can’t let the darkness make us dark—we must always been open to, a conduit for light. Or else the world will become quite dim. We will become quite dim.

Love always wins. Certainly, it is a better way of life. Is your heart growing or shrinking?

Is your love and compassion and connection for other people, your hope for a better future, growing or shrinking? The heart is a muscle. You must make it strong. Strong, not hard and brittle. Strong enough to love everything and everyone in all situations. Strong enough to not break along with the world.

All of us bear a great debt to those who sacrificed their yesterdays so that we could have better todays, so that the future would be better.

We should strive to avoid the disappointment of future generations.

There is a poem about an old man on his final journey who comes across a washed-out road. He manages to get to the other side, but when he does, he stops instead of continuing on. There, he labors hard to build a bridge. “Why are you wasting your strength here?” another traveler asked. “You already made it across.” The builder lifted his old gray head; “Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said, “There followed after me to-day A youth whose feet must pass this way. This chasm that has been as naught to me To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be; He, too, must cross in the twilight dim; Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!”

But this work of a lifetime is also the work that gives life meaning. Having been coated with the stardust of so much goodness, it’s our duty—and our joy—to sparkle others with it too. The future depends on it.

Yes, it can be hard to maintain idealism in the face of a harsh world, but what kind of life are you living if you become more selfish and colder as you go?

We start small and we build.

it’s not a principle until it costs you money.

Stoicism is particularly attractive to young men who are struggling for purpose and direction in life.

I carry a debt that I must pay by being a good father and a good citizen.

It’s not virtue signaling to push back against cruelty and indifference.

We’re not here for ourselves. We can’t watch the world burn. Our job is to try to save the world…and failing that, at least we can try to not be part of the problem.

I particularly liked Marcus Aurelius’s observation, written during his own devastating pandemic, that there are two types of plagues. One can take your life, he said, but the one to worry about is the one that can destroy your character.

But ultimately, it doesn’t matter what kind of work you do or what you accomplish. In the end, you’re measured by how you treat the people closest to you.

Life is short. Be good. Do good. Love and be loved. Try to leave the place better than you found it. Do the right thing. Right now.