We are all aware that becoming good at something takes time and practice. We often forget however that becoming good at being human, or rather becoming a good human being, is no different. It is easy to become really complacent with regards to improving our character, refining our selfish motive, and becoming more emotionally mature.
No doubt life provides ample opportunity to learn the required lessons but we have the habit, and indeed I see it in myself, of telling ourselves that we are good people who occupy the wind swept hills of moral justice. We are in fact, as a species, ridiculously good at occupying the wind swept hills of moral justice and, just by the way, I think this is a tendency we should be absolutely deliberate about dropping. It prevents us from true moral development as it prevents us from recognizing how it is that we fall short of being the good people we all wish to be.
Becoming a good person takes many hours of deliberate introspection. It requires coming to truly know one-self. To truly know and be able to refine one’s motives. It does not just happen by accident.
Becoming a good person is central to living a good life. No only is being a good person central for the individuals well being but it is absolutely essentially for the cohesive and prosperous functioning of society. Adam Smith, the father of capitalist economics recognized that self-interest, the driving principle of the free market, will destroy an economy and society if not kept in check. He noted that good people, with a sophisticated understanding of what is appropriate and just are required to counter-balance the greed which sits behind the capitalist mechanism. So, even in a system which attempts to harness human greed it is absolutely necessary to have good people, otherwise the system is not sustainable.
Any system or society is defined by the people that comprise it. The people that comprise it are defined by how morally mature and sophisticated they are.
For more on this topic please read the following article: 0-Good goverance business society 22 May 2014