When Goodness Isn't Good Enough‪.‬

FOR MANY YEARS NOW I have thought of myself as a collector of good people. Whenever I find such rare individuals who shine from within, who see beyond their selfish interests and devote themselves to improving the world, I try not to lose touch with them. By now I have quite a collection. Some are people with whom I grew up, some I met in college, and others I've met on the job, at my Unitarian church, or through friends of friends. They're scattered all over the country, and the amount of money I end up spending each year on plane trips and phone calls to keep in touch is a little bit frightening. You probably haven't heard of any of these good people. They aren't saints, and none of them is in line for a Nobel Peace Prize. They're just good people trying to live their lives as well as they can. I've been observing many of them for a long time now. Over the years I've seen their worldviews, careers, relationships, and children mature. And eventually I started witnessing something else too. I started seeing them suffer.