Are you a good person? How can you tell?

Do our particular choices determine whether we’re a good person or not? What if we make many “bad” choices but then try to make up for it with “good” choices? Is there some kind of scale in which all the “bad” things I do have to get balanced out by the “good” things I do? This seems a very Judeo/Christian way to look at life… a very “scales of justice/heaven or hell” kinda thing which definitely feels wrong in my heart and gut.

I have so many questions and so few answers.

One thing that feels true, for me at least, is that my desire to be a good person often causes me to make choices that are more generous, thoughtful, empathetic, and kind. This just happened to me this week in a situation with my current landlady. (We are renting rooms in a B&B temporarily while building our new house.)

The short version is that the landlady is scared that my cat, Layla, is causing her dog, Hope anxiety and mental stress, and possibly physical danger. After many months of trying, with varying success, to keep the two animals physically separated I asked a friend to take Layla in for a few weeks until we move out of here to a new apartment.

My landlady was extremely profuse in her thanks.

But I’m sad and my kids are sad. Layla is not just a member of our family but the one that gives each of us daily doses of fun, entertainment, and affection. We will really miss her terribly.

I made the choice to temporarily re-home her because I knew that my landlady was experiencing deep distress over this situation. Also — her distress caused me distress because she accused me of not caring about her dog and not taking the situation seriously.

(After spending a day grumping through my day, losing sleep, and grumbling over how my landlady is ‘getting too worked up about this.’)

So am I a good person for putting this woman’s mental health first? Or am I making a “bad” choice by taking responsibility for another person’s mental health when I know that is not my responsibility?

Am I a good person for prioritizing my mental well-being since the land lady’s distress was causing me anxiety?

Or am I a bad mom for making my kids miss their beloved cat?

Am I a bad mom for uprooting Layla and sending her away for just being her natural cat self?

If I didn’t care about being a good person AND being a good example to my kids, would I have made a different choice?? Very possibly.

Or maybe I’m just crazy for thinking so much about a choice that in the big scheme of things, is rather trivial???

I’ve heard that there are people who don’t care about this question — that this is not how they measure themselves and their lives. But it’s really hard for me to wrap my head around because it’s such a big part of my life.

This causes me to ask the question: what makes someone a good person?

I was talking recently with a friend about a mutual acquaintance. This other woman, let’s call her Amanda, is someone my friend and I have both known for many years. Back in the day, I considered Amanda a friend — I enjoyed spending time with her, admired and respected her, and thought she felt the same way about me. Then at some point, she started acting differently towards me. I stopped getting invited to her parties. My kids stopped getting invited to her kid’s parties. Then I noticed that she “unfriended” me on Facebook. Uh Oh!!!

I asked her about the FB thing in an email. It read something like -

Hey Amanda, I noticed you unfriended me on FB. Did I do something to upset you or make you angry with me? I value our friendship and would love to work through whatever is going on.

Her reply to me was something like -

Oh no, not at all. You know FB is weird sometimes. We’re good.

But we weren’t good. When our paths crossed she would act polite and friendly, but I could tell that she was faking it. I never did find out why she stopped being my friend. I felt sad about it, but went on with my life.

Then the other day, I heard a similar story from my friend. She’d experienced a similar situation with Amanda. This got me pondering because after sharing her story, my friend said,

But Amanda must be a good person… she does all this charity work.

One way that I define being a good person is honesty — especially with the people close to you. A huge definer of “good person” status in my eyes is integrity. Do you walk your talk and speak your truth? Do your actions align with your words?

Clearly not in the case of Amanda in that she lied to both me and my friend.

But I get it — honest conversations are frightening and hard. It’s way easier to pretend, even to yourself, and white wash over the truth. Many of us are so scared of confrontation that we stay in relationships that aren’t working for us for months or even years, lying to ourselves primarily, and the other person secondarily. Raise your hand if you’ve done that.

Me! Me! Me!

So does that make me a bad person?

I have actually given a LOT of thought to the specific question my friend raised — does charity work make you a good person? — because of my experiences running The Lunch Box, a large-scale free meal program (aka soup kitchen) in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

The question popped up for me even earlier than that when I spent time volunteering for NOW (National Organization of Women)in high school.

My supervisor’s over the top jerkiness immediately threw me for a loop. She was straight up mean to me and, as far as I saw, all the women that worked under her — the organization’s staff, the volunteers, and the maintenance women who cleaned their offices.

She spent every ounce of energy in her body fighting for women's rights but treated the women near her like shit. Why? How does she justify that?

That’s what I wanted an answer to. I couldn’t figure it out back then.

Years later I saw similar patterns in many of the women running the volunteer efforts of their church/synagogue/community, including organizing groups of volunteers to prep and serve meals at The Lunch Box.

These women were BY FAR the most difficult to deal with for me as a manager. They were WAY MORE DIFFICULT on the whole than the clients, many of whom were struggling every day with homelessness, joblessness, mental health issues, physical health issues, PTSD, violence, and substance abuse.

I was yelled at, insulted, and called names by more of the women volunteer organizers in my 2+ years running the soup kitchen than by clients coming to eat.

WTF, right?

I have some ideas. Some have to do with the lack of safety that the clients felt. Perhaps they wanted to insult and yell at me but were holding it in in order to be allowed to come to eat. Definitely a solid possibility.

With this piece, I am interested in exploring the volunteer women, however. The women who were probably regularly described as “good people.”

I came away with a few solid truths about those of us whose resumes scream “good person.” (I include myself in this category. I consider myself a “do-gooder” in recovery.)

Our doing good often comes from a need to feel in control.

Our doing good often comes from a need to feel good about ourselves. We often have a big hole inside that would be better filled up with a strong foundation of self-acceptance and self-compassion but because we don’t know that, or don’t know how to do that, we strive to fill it with “doing good.” But trying to fill the hole that way never works, it almost acts in reverse and every word of praise or accolade somehow digs that hole deeper.

Our doing good checks a box that we see in our heads about how to do the “right” things and/or leading a “good” life — Have a good job, Check.

Marry and live monogamously, Check.

Have healthy, successful kids, Check.

Buy a house and maintain a green lawn, Check.

Give back to your community, Check…

Etc, etc, etc.

So does checking off the above boxes make you a good person?

Does trying to fill a hole of self-doubt and fear with charity work make you a good person?

Maybe it does. Because doing the opposite doesn’t seem like a better option, right?

Does the good person label relate to your why for helping other people out?

Or does it relate to the how? Does it matter why at all?

Or should we just throw out the whole notion of being able to label someone a good or bad person altogether?

But then what about murderers and rapists? Obviously bad.

But is there a scale? Can you balance your scales out?

If we throw the scales out completely, then what?

Do we then have to accept that all people are a mix of good and bad?

But then how do we choose how to behave towards other people?

What do you think about all this?

I would love to hear your thoughts.