THE IDEAL OF BEING 'GOOD'

1/7/2022

Our August Topic of Conversation continues to delve into ‘The Ideal of Being Good’. We are exploring what it really means when we’re being ‘good’.

The ideals and beliefs held around good manners and polite society have been one of the basic tenements in the western world for hundreds of years.

We are trained to be good through our socialisation in the world and our education systems. Children have been taught acceptable behaviour from a very early age by being confirmed when being ‘good’. The ‘good girl’ and ‘good boy’ still permeates our communication with children, identifying them for what they do rather than an appreciation for who they are, setting them up for the need for approval from others throughout their life. Does this not disempower us all as children and then as adults?

Of course, it is hugely important for us to learn to respect and love ourselves and each other, however if we are raised with rules, at what point do they become our gaoler? Is it not more important for us to feel within who we are, and how to respond to life, thereby empowering ourselves and each other?

We have some wonderful articles this month from authors writing about their understanding of the ideal of good. We invite you to share with us your experience of being good, if and how this belief has impacted you.

14 Comments

Ingrid Langenbruch link

27/6/2022 09:34:28 am

As a child I have been so trained and even been threatened to 'be a good girl or...'
You don't have much choice when you are little and this 'being good' can stick with you like chewing gum growing up and even as an adult. From my experience of having to be being good I can say that that was not me and was not true for me. I was playing an act and not my truth. It needed some de-programming to find the true me again and some of the old program like holding back and not speaking my truth are hard to let go of.

Sandra Newland

1/7/2022 10:22:44 am

"There's a good girl", was an expression I detested. It was said often to me by my grandmother when she wanted me to do something and I felt I was being manipulated and pushed into doing something to please her. I might have been being a 'good girl' by complying but often begrudgingly and so the energy I did it in was certainly not harmonious. Being 'good' was simply fulfilling another's expectations.

Sandra Newland

1/7/2022 10:23:05 am

Good implies the opposite – bad. If you are not good, then you must be bad and often that was more attractive to me than being a good girl because I felt as if I had more freedom to express. But did I? That was an illusion because it was just a reaction to an imposition and not something I felt free to do from an impulse within.

Lynne Paull-McLeod

6/7/2022 09:04:53 am

I experienced similar Sandra, but I didn't feel any freedom in being bad, I felt a failure if I wasn't being 'good'. There was no space for self expression in my family, even into adulthood. I was often clashing with my mum in particular about our viewpoints :-))

The core essence of our family belief system has been judgement - so good and bad, right and wrong has been there for me to deeply observe and heal.

Annie Mack

7/7/2022 06:49:30 am

What an amazing subject to bring up and reflect upon. For me growing up to be good was to play safe, if I was the good girl I escaped attention and could safely stay in my isolated world. I never craved to be told I was good, but I craved to be left alone and not get into trouble. I saw what happened to people that got into trouble and that scared me to bits.

As I got into my mid to late teens however I realised that I needed to get out and live and have fun, although the only way to have some fun with other people was to be bad, even though there was nothing actually bad that I was participating in, (but in the eyes of my parents what I was doing was sinful and very very bad)

These good and bad labels that are placed upon everyone, because of someone else's expectations or beliefs are really disgusting and so very harmful. I know I took this same good and bad belief system to my own children and relationships and everything else in life, albeit a different version of the good and bad that I grew up with but the same damaging results occurred.

It is all judgement as you say Lynne and behind the judgement is fear. It is so freeing when one sees this and can let go of yet another strait jacket that was placed around us.

Bernadette Curtin

8/7/2022 08:42:28 am

The ideal of good does seem to come with expectations, whether from another, or imposed upon our self according to adopted beliefs and values. And good and bad cannot be separated. Good requires effort and bad can lead to lack of self worth, or giving up and feeling rebellious. From reading the comments above, the ideal of good is an energy that doesn’t feel true, it has a falseness and superficiality that doesn’t establish solid foundations for living life with confidence and authority. It can be false good when we are trying to please, or when we know there are consequences for not acquiescing.

Gayle

10/7/2022 07:14:38 pm

As children we were always 'trying' to be good so that we would get approval = love from our parents. And so it became a pattern that we took into our adult lives. As children it is understandable that this was how we chose to operate. But why didn't we wake up to it as we grew older?

As an adult, being 'good' is often so false that the energy contained in the falsity of it far outweighs any 'good appearance' you might have managed to pull off. And yet, we still didn't wake up to the damage of being 'good'. Only now in the wisdom of our elder years, we see the ruse. And fortunately, it isn't too late. We can live differently, starting right now.

Judy

13/7/2022 06:06:58 pm

Being good was something I learned very young. I felt I had to be good as a way of helping my mother, afterall, she had a lot of children to take care of and I didn't want to be a trouble for her. Perhaps more strategically, being good kept me under the radar and out of trouble. It felt safer to be there and not call attention to myself. Afterall, you can't get into trouble if you're good! I valued peace and harmony but being 'good' was incredibly constraining. I had created my own straight-jacket and never felt free to truly express myself with joy. The only other choice seemed to be ' being bad' but it had limited appeal and never felt truly true. I admired the girls at school who rebelled – at least they had the gumption to stand up for themselves and challenge the expectations of the sytem. But it never felt like a true choice. How could it be if it was an opposing position to 'good'. Neither good nor bad are true, and therein is the dilemma if we think that good and bad are our only choices. It has been such a blessing to expose the good syndome and learn to really reflect on what is true. And it's not nearly as risky as I might once have thought it was. The sky hasn't fallen in. On the contrary, I've felt much stronger calling out the truth and being true to myself. If I can be cheeky....it feels good! truly good.

Gill Randall

1/8/2022 02:40:01 pm

Same same Judy... my sister became very ill when she was 9 and I was 6 years old, so it became really important that I was good and didn't cause any trouble, did as I was told, sat in hospital corridors quietly until everyone returned. Then it followed on at school, the way through life is be good all the time, head down and pass exams. So speaking up and speaking out as an adult has been quite a challenge, but I've realised the only person we need to feel settled about is ourselves.

Gayle

22/7/2022 08:18:41 am

At one of the local supermarkets, there is a woman working regularly at the check-out counter who is always super-bubbly. When I first encountered her, it was refreshing. She was so upbeat. As time went on, I wondered how she maintained that level of output during an 8 hour shift. Every time I was there she was in that upbeat mode. I wondered, 'Is she like that all the time, socially and even at home?' Then I started to notice the energy she was moving in. She was efficient and she was friendly - she was very 'good' in all aspects, but there was a hardness, perhaps an emptiness. I didn't feel it as a judgement, more of an observation of the different ways we as human beings find to cope in the world and the different faces of 'good'.

Joan Calder

1/8/2022 07:49:31 pm

When a comment mentioned the admiration of “bad” girls at school I remember those girls who seemed more “colourful” and larger than life because they got a lot of attention from their misbehaviour. We all got excited about them. And again those parts of the villain in school plays, especially in Pantomimes where the part was played with full gusto! Oh, you could really enjoy playing those roles. From the Inn Keeper in the Nursery School Nativity Play to Iago in Othello! Would I really have preferred to play The Virgin Mary or Desdemona? No way! I did play Desdemona and found her to be a woman who gave her own authority away and wept over it, a reflection of myself. To play it out on stage I felt no satisfaction, “mamby pamby “ I called it and got extremely irritated. But see, she was caught in the trap of a Created world, and much of that came from the Ideal of the “Virgin” Mary, and her opposite - Mary Magdalen. So watch out girls, if you are not like this — the good - you’ll end up like this -the bad. Caught in the deadly truth of a Social Morality. Am I bitter? Yes. Do I hate this? Yes. Do I see how it has turned out for all humanity? Yes, the whole unharmonious imbalance of Society, in our structure, our ways of living, and our bodies.
Is this a rant? Maybe , but also a “Call to Prayer” - the Prayer being the Way we choose to live our lives in Truth, Harmony, Stillness, Joy and Love together as one, not in separated designated qualities.

Gayle

6/8/2022 11:21:32 am

Joan - I love what you have shared in your short comment, offering great examples of the saint and the sinner, how and where we play these parts (literally) on and off stage. You've covered so much. Then bring us to a constructive conclusion with a call to prayer. Beautiful contribution.

Patricia Darwish

2/8/2022 01:32:58 pm

"Good girl" was never said to me as a child.

Very early on my mother branded me reasonable and branded I remained. I was incarcerated in a straight jacket. Not for me to be playful or light.

Reasonable or 'good', had it been uttered, implied responsibility. Being of service, invisible, mute thus allowing my little brother to live his childhood as he saw fit.

Wherever I went later in life I felt responsible for others to my own detriment. I carried this into my married life and became the good wife pre-empting my husband's every need.

I always envied the 'bad girls' for the fun they seemingly enjoyed. There was a time when all I wanted was to f... up big time, to break the mould, for others to see the persona I adhered to was not me. I never had the courage.

But along the way I found the Livingness so I am finally breaking loose!

Gayle

6/8/2022 11:25:45 am

Serious as your comments could be taken Patricia, I laughed (in joy) at your final sentence. We think breaking out of a mould means being radically good or bad (whichever opposite we are looking for) whereas you've found the way out of the ultimate mould we are all in. It is to start LIVING from our true essence, where good and bad don't even exist as measurements.

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THE IDEAL OF BEING 'GOOD'

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