Reading sample:
Do you know a single place on this earth where everything is in order? Sometimes it seems this way when we are in love, traveling, or in a particular community. But if we look closely, we realize that the goodness of the situation has been attained by excluding some basic aspects of the human condition. Lovers have their deep confrontations still to come; the traveler is in the privileged situation to move on at any time; special communities live according to rules that can never apply to all people. If you and I could determine how this world should be - would it then be a really good place? Are we mostly good as a whole? And does something really good spring forth in the world as a result of our goodness? I've have searched for a long time, but I do not know a single place in the world where everything is permanently and comprehendsively in order. This realization leads me to my central question: Is it enough to be a good person? According to my definition, good people are those who work to ensure that they themselves, as many other people as possible and the earth are all doing well. To this end, I see only two plausible paths: one, we have to intensify our efforts a bit more. There must be even more commitment and willingness to help, even more of helping people to help themselves and even more environmental protection. For this purpose, better logistics, more efficient technology, cheaper medicine and fairer trading conditions are needed. This is the common logic that soothes us with the promise: work at it a little harder, soon we'll get results. Or the second approach: there is something fundamentally wrong with our goodness. Its lack of success is part of its nature. Unless we understand this, we will chase the mirage of a good world just as the donkey chases a carrot. The donkey only keeps trying because he doesn't see, who is holding the carrot. If I were to heed the first statement, which says that we only need to put a little more effort in, I could give you hints and tips on how you can strengthen your positive, loving, supportive, respectful and compassionate qualities. I could tell you what you can do to more effectively be a good person. That wouldn't be a wrong thing to do. It would probably help to improve the world a little. But because this approach has been pursued for so long by so many people, I would like to make a new proposal: let's try to understand our own good will better.