I’m an incurable optimist.
I think it’s in my DNA. I’m one of those people who finds a silver lining for every cloud, a “bright side” for every tragedy. If we’re friends, I can hardly wait for you to finish telling me how bad your day was before I can interject how it could’ve been worse. (The whole time you’ve been complaining, I’ve been silently cataloguing the “good stuff” that you’ve overlooked in the midst of your bad mood.)
Honestly, I’m kinda proud of my optimism. It’s hard-won. I didn’t grow up in the perfect family. My dad was a raging alcoholic. I was the shy introvert in an entire family of extroverts. I wasn’t popular in school. In fact, I was bullied, teased and excluded. The few friends I found were labeled “losers” by pretty much everyone — and my best friends had the annoying habit of moving out of state. (This happened about 4 times with 4 different “besties.”) Poor me.
And yet, I’ve always chosen to see the best in people. I’ve always trusted folks unless they gave me a reason not to. I give people the benefit of the doubt, I don’t judge a book by its cover, and my cliches always come in threes. 🙂
In 7th grade, I read The Diary of Anne Frank. Most of you are probably familiar with the autobiographical work, which describes a teenage girl’s experience in Nazi Germany during WWII. Her Jewish family were forced into hiding, were captured and sent to concentration camps (Auschwitz and then Bergen-Belsen), where Anne eventually died.
In spite of everything…
Before perishing in a concentration camp, Anne wrote a curious thing: “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
Wow. Despite everything she’d endured, being ripped from her home and family, seeing thousands of people suffering and dying all around her, Anne Frank held firm in the belief that people are basically good. Maybe she needed to believe that. Maybe her optimism was a survival instinct. Maybe mine is too.
Anyway, I think her book had such an impact on me because it confirmed what I believed: that despite how terrible we can treat each other, despite wars and greed and rape and murder, most people are just trying to be the best they can, to do the best they can. Most people aren’t evil. Most people are basically good. I think we all want to believe that. It feels good. It feels right.
And so I grew up, went to college, got married, and began raising a couple of kids. Life was good.
Until it wasn’t.
At the age of 35, I was struggling. My life was ostensibly “good,” even great… at least on paper. But on the inside, not so much. The outer trappings of success were not enough. I projected confidence, integrity, strength and a “can do” attitude to the world. It didn’t hurt that the wife and kids were very photogenic. 🙂 But my inner life was one of isolation, chaos, fear, cravings and compulsions, and the haunting thoughts that I would never amount to anything: that my best would never be good enough. I was constantly lying to myself and others to keep up appearances… to project the person I believed they wanted me to be. The “chameleon” act was exhausting. It also prevented me from discovering who I really was, and what I really wanted from life.
That’s when I was introduced to the 12 Steps. I didn’t have a “come to Jesus” moment. It was a process: in fits and starts, in baby steps and eventually in huge leaps. Via the Steps, I met my Higher Power. I met Jesus. He saved me from myself, and gave me my life back. My whole life. Inside and out. I was (and still am) finally happy. Finally, authentically me.
Why am I telling you this? Because it was during this time that I first did a California Fourth Step. It’s a long and grueling (AAs call it “fearless and thorough”) personal inventory, with hundreds of questions separated into stages of life: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Most people take weeks or months to complete it, if they even make the attempt. (I dare you to try it!)
Do you feel all human beings are basically good…?
Now to the point: in the adulthood section of the California Fourth Step, there’s an interesting question: “Do you feel all human beings are basically good and sensitive?”
In answer to the question, I wrote simply, “Yes.” Then I moved on to the next question. I didn’t think much about it.
A few weeks later came Step Five. That’s when you take the answers you wrote in Step Four and read them out loud to another person in the program, sometimes called a “sponsor.” (Yikes! Yes, I actually did this.)
Now, when I read my answer to my sponsor, he said, “Really? Basically good? Are you sure about that?”
So I opened my mouth to defend my answer. We Chatfields are good debaters and as you’ve already discovered, I’m an incurable optimist. I was ready to prove my point. I do love a good argument! But instead — in that moment — I hesitated. I thought about everything I’d written about in my Fourth Step, about my inner thought life, about what had been done to me, and what I’d done to others. I thought about all the fear-motivated rationalizations, the deceptions, the lies I told myself. I thought about the fact that every single one of the people I have hurt most in life have been the people closest to me.
And I just started laughing!
It finally dawned on me. OF COURSE people are not basically good… who was I kidding?! I guess I was finally “woke,” as the kids say today.
It took me until middle-age to figure it out
Shockingly, I took until my mid-thirties to uncover this myth. And yes, it’s a myth. A lie. People are NOT basically good. This is demonstrably true just by viewing the world as it is, and comparing that to what it could and should be.
First, let me say that by “basically” I mean “fundamentally,” or “intrinsically,” as it were.
So, I’m not going to trot out a bunch of facts (stats on genocide, rape, greed, sloth) and psychological studies (Milgram comes to mind), to prove my case, but I could. Instead I’m going to asked some pointed questions, which all begin with, “If people are basically good…”
- Why is it easier to lie than to tell the truth?
- Why are some people starving when others nearby have more than enough to eat?
- Why are we quick to excuse our own bad behavior, lauding our good intentions, but even quicker to harshly judge others’ behavior– and assume their motivations are impure?
- Why do we have thousands of laws when we couldn’t even keep 10 simple commandments?
- Why can people, especially children, be so cruel to each other?
- Why is it easier to hate than it is to forgive?
- Why do newspapers and news media tend to focus on the negative?
- Why do we hurt the ones we love?
As a Christian, I believe scripture backs me up on this. Don’t worry, you won’t have to read very far. In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, we find Adam and Eve selfishly disobeying God, breaking the one and only rule he gave them. When caught, does Adam take responsibility, fess up and ask forgiveness? No, he throws Eve under the bus (and even blames God, indirectly). I’m paraphrasing Adam: “This woman you gave me handed me the apple, and I ate it.” Then God turns to Adam’s mate. Surely, she’ll do better. So, Eve, what do you say? “It wasn’t my fault, the serpent deceived me!” The Devil made me do it.
Elsewhere in the Old Testament, Psalm 14 says, “The LORD looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there is one who is wise, one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one.” Pretty clear.
If you prefer the New Testament, one of my favorite lines from Jesus is in Matthew 7:11, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” God’s opinion on the matter is made even more clear when you realize the audience to whom Jesus is speaking is his own disciples!
If you’re not a Christian you can dismiss/ignore the Biblical references. But I actually think the atheists would side with me on this one. Atheists believe that humans are simply higher apes, right? We’re animals that have evolved to become intelligent manipulators of our environment. So, our animal nature to hunt, survive, carve out territory and basically “kill or be killed” makes perfect sense. And the popular conception that human beings are a virus (or a cancer) that is destroying our beloved Earth, killing off other species, fits right in with my line of thinking. Humans are the only animals that hunt for sport. One of the first dogs I owned was a ‘rescue’ puppy who had been thrown (with 8 of her litter-mates) out of the back of a moving pickup truck, into a drainage ditch. Humans are the only animals that can be in-human.
Now, let me be clear. I’m not denying that some humans can be pretty decent some of the time, or even most of the time. Heck, we can even be self-sacrificing, brave, heroic and honorable. Examples are everywhere, if you look. I’m an optimist, remember? What I’m saying is that in those moments, those “good people” are NOT displaying their human nature. No, in fact they are *rising above* their human nature.
It’s not human nature, for most of us, to help save the human race, or even to help our neighbor. Human nature is to sit on the couch, grab some Pringles and binge-watch Netflix because you had a long day at work, you’re emotionally spent and you’re just too damn tired to do anything else right now. That’s most people, most of the time. Me included.
And let’s face it: Anne Frank, the concentration camp victim, saw the world through the eyes of a child. I love her innocence and naiveté. But she was a kid. She was ignoring the fact that she and 6 million fellow Jews were not being personally annihilated by Hitler and a handful of Nazi party members. No. It was, collectively, the entire country of Germany — millions of people — who either carried out those atrocities, stood by and watched, or hid their eyes and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. Are we to believe, as she did, that most people are good at heart? Or is it easier to believe we are all sinners, desperately in need God’s mercy and grace?
I sometimes hear people say, “So-and-So restored my faith in humanity!” I want to have faith in humanity, I really do. But as humans, we have a pretty poor track record. I prefer faith in God. Jesus said apart from him we can do nothing. I truly believe that. So I’m convinced that anything good in my life, any good inclination I have, any hopeful or helpful or unselfish word or deed I’ve ever expressed, simply isn’t in my human nature. It’s the divine nature of the Holy Spirit working in me and through me.
About that optimism thing…
So, yes I believe people are basically self-serving and that human nature tends toward sin. We’re our own worst enemies. It’s embedded in our human nature to destroy ourselves. So, does that mean despair? What’s an optimist to do?
Again, it comes back to faith. It’s been said that fear is just misplaced faith. If I’m afraid, that means I’m focused on the wrong thing. I’m hoping my talents, abilities, resources will win the day. Or I’m hoping my job, my boss, my spouse or my country will “do the right thing.” If you look at where our society is heading, it’s easy to be afraid. But I can’t put my faith in society, or who the next president is, or science and technology.
I can put my faith in an all powerful, infinitely loving God. A God who knows my weaknesses, because he made me. A God who accepts me and loves me unconditionally. That’s where my faith belongs, and why I can hope in the future, no matter how uncertain it may appear from my extremely narrow and murky point of view.