It's Do Good More So Than Be Good

Some criminals consider themselves relatively good people on the inside. If someone that spent a life of crime still feels like he's a good person then chances are that most people think of themselves as good people even if the reality could tell a different story. 

"Cogito, ergo sum" which translates to "I think therefore I am" is the first principle of a philosophy defined by René Descartes that we could expand to "I think therefore I am right" or "I think therefore I am good". How, or what, we think feels right to us as why else would we be thinking about it? It's easy for us to internally feel like a victim of a situation and justified in our overreactions of it. 

To "be" a good person is to "do" good things not simply thinking good thoughts and it's for other people to judge what our good deeds are; It's for other people to determine how good we are.

The picture we have of ourselves and how other perceives us are two separate entities and self improvement requires considerations of both. Become the best version of yourself by paying attention to the constructive criticism people are saying about you.

The Book Dream

It seems that writing a book is the dream of many that few actually end up doing as they grossly underestimate their writing abilities. Perhaps the reason why most people want to write a book is because they think it'll be a financial success; not realizing that some full time writers struggle to find success. 

Writing is a skill!

Like signing, dancing, metalworking... writing is a skill that needs to be worked on. You can't just wake up one day and decide that you'll write a book and expect that it'll be successful. If a full time writer isn't able to live off of his work then hobbyists writers should rethink their goals or start giving it the attention that it deserves rather than treat it as a side project.

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from writing books. If this is one of your future goals, start working towards it even if it's only by reading the dictionary in order to expand your vocabulary. Write a few pages now, see where your skills are at and work on it. What I would hate to see is for someone to wait until they're in their 50s to start writing their book only to realize that they don't have the skills necessary to do it justice and may no longer have enough time to learn it.

It's not as easy as most people think that it is. Remember that while most people can write few can write books without prior dedication to the artform. A book is also not a guaranteed financial gain and not something that should be relied upon as a form of retirement income. 

“Either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing [about].

-Benjamin Franklin

If its your dream then give it the priority it requires.

Looks can be Deceiving

It seems that we have a tendency to associate what is beautiful to good and what is ugly as being evil. Life, however, isn't as black and white as you'll find just as much beauty in evil as you will find ugly in good. We associate beauty with good because it's pleasing and what is pleasing must be good and what is ugly/displeasing must be evil. 

While this association to morality is unrealistic it's still widely accepted as the interpretation of good/evil in religious text or society in general.

As a kid, I was convinced that Satan was a displeasing looking creature and angels were the most beautiful things that existed. Now that I'm older, I know that appearances can be deceiving and evil can look pleasing to the eyes while good isn't necessarily. 

Evil can also be in institutions that advertises itself as being a place of good such as churches. How many atrocities were committed in the name of God?

Some people have fostered a reputation of doing good deeds only to hide their evil deeds when nobody is looking.

Appearance can be deceiving - trust but verify.

Ignorance Fueled by Misinformation

There was a time when I believed that all that was required to cure ignorance was knowledge but experience showed me that even knowledge can't cure ignorance for as long as the student isn't opened to receive it. This is why many still believe such things as "the Earth is flat" even though it's been proven otherwise for centuries.

In recent years, we've seen a rise of misinformation fueled by influencers attempting to make money off of sensational/fake information which tend to confuse the educated and uneducated alike. We may think that we're smart enough to identify the true from the false but the reality is that we likely believe things that are simply not true.

While we can't double/triple check everything we see online, we should educate ourselves from reputable sources for the important things of life. 

We shouldn't, for example, take financial advice from just anyone we find on YouTube. A background check can go a long way into insuring that the person is who he says he is.

There's no such thing as a perfect place for information and the responsibility to cut the false from the truth falls on each one of us.