Welcome to Sunday Journal, a chance to start your week out with short, quiet reflections and advice for life.
This effort started with a handwritten journal I keep for each of my children, designed to give them a sense of how to become the best version of themselves. If you find this valuable, please share it with others.
Each edition contains three sections: reflections to put into practice, an inspirational quote, and an image to contemplate.
This week, why we choose good and love over evil and hate.
Reflection
Aristotle argued in the Nicomachean Ethics that humans are, by nature, oriented toward eudaimonia â flourishing, well-being, the good life. Not pleasure alone. Not power. Good.
He didnât say this naively; he wrote in a world fraught with war, plague, and slavery. He said it because he observed something persistent and stubborn in human behavior: we keep trying to build, to connect, to repair.
Marcus Aurelius, writing in his imperial purple while managing a crumbling empire, returned again and again in his Meditations to a single discipline: assume the best of others, at least as a starting point.
Believing in good is not the same as believing everything is fine. It is a choice about where to place oneâs attention â and that choice has consequences. Psychologists call this orientation dispositional optimism, and the research is unambiguous: people who hold it are healthier, more resilient, and more likely to act in ways that make the world incrementally better. The belief is generative. Cynicism is a closed loop; hope is an open one.
Choosing to believe in good is not sentiment. It is strategy. It is leadership.
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