I've learned that my goal shouldn't be to affect change. It's too easy to think I've failed because rarely is the person who plants the seed of change the person to see it bloom. Instead I've decided to make my goal to affect good. Trying to affect change can feel overwhelming, but good always self-propagates and ultimately leads to the change we're usually after.
Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law of Nature. Nowadays, when we talk of the 'laws of nature' we usually mean things like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But when the older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong the 'Law of Nature', they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation, and organisms by biological laws, so the creature called man also had his law--with this great difference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obey the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it.
"Don't become weary in doing good. If we are patient, we can experience the change of heart we seek. For most of us this will require only a slight change of course, sending us toward true north. The adjustments we must make are in those 'small things,' but that does not mean they are easy. Too many forces are confusing our compass. But the pull to the polar star is one we recognize. It is the direction toward home."
So shines a good deed in a weary world.
Some people do not have to search -
they find their niche early in life and rest there, seemingly contented and resigned.
They do not seem to ask much of life,
sometimes they do not seem to take it seriously.
At times I envy them,
but usually I do not understand them -
seldom do they understand me.
I am one of the searchers.
There are, I believe, millions of us.
We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life,
hoping to uncover its ultimate secret.
We continue to explore ourselves,
hoping to understand.
We like to walk along the beach -
we are drawn by the ocean,
taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty.
We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well.
Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter.
To share our sadness with the one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know -
unless it is to share our laughter.
We searchers are ambitious only for life itself,
for everything beautiful it can provide.
Most of all we want to love and be loved.
We want to live in a relationship that will not impede
our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls.
We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.
We are wanderers, dreamers and lovers,
lonely souls who dare ask of life everything good and
beautiful.
- - James Kavanaugh
What is your personal definition of “good”?
A world in which everyone is universally empathetic and exercises love and respect with full change-making power.
"I believe that there is only one story in the world...Humans are caught--in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too--in a net of good and evil...A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean question: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill?"
Don't look so much at the bad, everyone has their low points; love them for the good you find in them.
Always have a song on your heart, and you will be on a good note.
My mother heard this on NPR (National Public Radio) and immediately thought of me. I love it. You don't have to be good to get somewhere; you just have to be brave!
Believe it or not, a nun said this. Though I can't remember the name...
"Everything is as it is. It has no name other than what we give to it.
It is we who call it something; we give it value. We say this thing is good or it's bad, but in itself,
the thing is only as it is. It's not absolute; it's just as it is. People are just as they are."
- Ajahn Sumdho, The Mind and the Way
My goal in life is to be as good of a person as my dog thinks I am.
It is enough for the evil people to succeed, for the good people to do nothing.
Laughing is good.
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil. - Cicero
The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.
Anything you do, whether it is for immediate profit, future profit or "no" profit, is beneficial to YOU. It can also benefit someone else, but to YOU it will ALWAYS be beneficial.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
A brave and passionate man will kill or be killed.
A brave and calm man will always preserve life.
Of these two which is good and which is harmful?
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Find something good in every mistake
In those early days there was a general opinion that a business man could not be honest and make money or be successful. “Business is business,” was the slogan, with the connotation that no matter how sharp your practice it was all right if you did it legally.
“That is the jungle philosophy of every man for himself,” commented Mr. Russell. “It can no longer be practiced in the business world for it works against natural law. The future of great business lies in man’s comprehension of the principle of Balance in Natural Law and his determination to work WITH it instead of against it.
“The underlying principle of Balance in Nature’s One Law is equality of interchange between the pairs of opposites in any transaction in Nature. That principle must eventually be observed by big business, and the go-getter salesman who selfishly thinks that the sale he makes is the only thing that counts is not giving equally for what he takes. Therefore, I say, that equal interchange of goods and service between buyer and seller is the keynote of tomorrow’s business world when the vision of the modern business man awakens him to the wisdom of writing that policy into his code of ethics.”
"For thirty years people have been asking me how I reconcile X with Y! The truthful answer is that I don't. Everything about me is a contradiction and so is everything about everybody else. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There is a philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don't reconcile the poles. You just recognize them."
Sam: It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.
I want to take time to understand life. I want to travel. I want to be a better person, a better Mom. I want to
do something good with my life.
Whoever makes love grow boundless, and sets his mind for seeing the end of birth, his fetters are worn thin. If he loves even a single being, Good will follow. But the Noble One with compassionate heart for all mankind, generates abounding good.
We're not half as bad as God is good.
What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
For centuries you have been taught that love-sponsored action arises out of the choice to be, do, and have whatever produces the highest good for another. Yet I tell you this: the highest choice is that which produces the highest good for you.
I do not love “good” more than I love “bad.” Hitler went to heaven. When you understand this, you will understand God.
