GOSH, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A LOT OF WORK (via The Mother Judd):

Why Is It So Hard to Become a Better Person?: Thirteen reasons on Rosh Hashanah. (Dennis Prager, October 4, 2011, National Review)

Why is it so hard to become a better person?

I have -- unfortunately -- come up with 13 reasons.


1. Most people don't particularly want to be good

The biggest obstacle to people becoming better is that you have to really want to be a good person in order to be a better person, and most people would rather be other things. People devote far more effort to being happy (they do not know that goodness leads to increased happiness), successful, smart, attractive, and healthy, to cite the most prominent examples.  [...]


5. We think too highly of ourselves.

Self-esteem frequently runs counter to goodness. Raising children with self-esteem sounds great, but when unearned -- which it usually is -- it leads to bad results. In fact, it is people who do not have particularly high self-esteem, people who feel that they constantly have to prove their worth, who are more likely to act good. And it is violent criminals who have the highest self-esteem -- "I am better than others and can therefore do whatever I want." [...]


9. We have to battle our nature.

To be a good person, most of us have to battle our nature. Among many other things, we are naturally pre-occupied with ourselves. Yet, to be good, one has to think constantly about others, and how we are treating them.

For many people, there is an additional battle they have to wage -- with their natural tendency to be angry. One prevalent example is the angry mother or father who poisons his or her children against the other parent after a divorce, thereby often irreparably damaging both the children and the other parent.


10. I'm a victim.

I suspect that more people than ever before, in our society and in many others, walk around thinking of themselves as victims. Victimhood status is actually cultivated.

Now, the truth is that most people are victims. Very few of us have been entirely fairly treated by life. The problem, however, is that people who see themselves primarily as victims will rarely do any good, and many will do evil: "I've been mistreated by others," the thinking goes, "so I don't owe anybody anything."

Posted by oj at October 5, 2011 7:39 PM
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