I know how this sounds.
“A mission of goodness” feels embarrassing to even write down.
I rolled my eyes at language like this for a long time. Still do.
But out of necessity, and a desire to feel and function better, I turned more and more over the years toward the perennial values of kindness, service, contribution, compassion, and non-violence.
Lo and behold, it works.
When I can remember to orient myself toward goodness, not as an idea but as a way of showing up with actual humans, I feel more alive, more awake, and more at home in myself and in the world. When I forget goodness and drift into my head, that’s where hell lives. And by hell I mean competition, status, judgment, worry, inferiority and superiority, winning, fearing, fighting, and grasping. You know, all the things that make us want go shop, drink, eat, numb, overwork, scroll and consume.
Corporate Design Is to Make Us Passive
As if you didn’t know, we live inside systems that train us to be passive consumers. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s one of the most obvious facts of modern life. Large, impersonal corporations are designed to occupy our time, our attention, our nervous systems, and eventually our lives. We all get caught in it.
Our phones. Our feeds. Our food. Our consumption. Our prescriptions. Our diagnoses.
Much of modern life subtly teaches us to outsource meaning, defer authority, pathologize pain, avoid intimacy, comply, and give away our power. It should not surprise us that so many humans feel hollow, restless, irritable, anxious, depressed, or enraged. And then we’re told this is due to a broken brain. And wouldn’t you know it, they can fix broken brains.
Your Life Is a Machine. We Can Fix It.
Over the last several decades, we’ve been taught to think of ourselves as machines. If you’re struggling, there must be a part to tweak, some pipes that are clogged, a substance to add or subtract, a protocol to follow. Just bring yourself into the shop. Let the experts handle it.
Notice the hidden value baked into this worldview. Compliance.
Compliance with treatment.
Compliance with recommendations.
Compliance with systems that profit from your passivity.
This framework trains you to experience your pain as meaningless, a malfunction rather than a signal. It subtly teaches you that your task is not to live more truthfully, courageously, adventurously, or outrageously, but to numb the “symptoms” of your “brain disorder.”
Mental Health Is Undergoing a Profound Transformation
Don’t take my word for it. Read Pathological by Sarah Fay. Read The Book of Woe by Gary Greenberg. Watch the documentary, Medicating Normal. Read Saving Normal by Allen Frances. We’re well past canaries in the coal mine. The dam is breaking. Thank goodness.
Psychological-emotional-existential suffering is not a mechanical phenomenon. It’s emotional-relational. Spiritual even, though not in a conventional religious sense, but in the deepest questions of meaning and purpose at the core of your being and your life.
It shows up in questions like:
- Am I living in alignment with what I actually value?
- Am I telling the truth in my relationships? What about to myself?
- Am I contributing to life or merely consuming it?
- Who am I accountable to beyond my own comfort?
- What do I need to change in me to live more healthily and vitally?
- With whom do I need to give and receive love and nourishment each day?
Pain Is Power
Pain shows up to ask these questions on our behalf. Not to torture us, but to wake us up. Growing pains can be excruciating, but only in proportion to the growth they make possible.
Think of pain as a signal, a reminder, to re-dedicate yourself to your own deeply personal and meaningful mission of goodness. And the good news is that you get to decide what that means and what it looks like.
My Mission of Goodness
I’m not interested in goodness in the abstract, or as moral superiority.
My appetite for it is as orientation. A way of being. A way to approach the day. A daily set of commitments to live by.
Why is this so important to me? Because without it, I drift into a myopic, self-obsessed, isolated hell. And then I inflict that on others.
No one wins in that formulation.
Not a Grandiose Mission, at All
I need this way of being to be simple, actionable, and available in ordinary places. In how I speak to my wife and kids when I’m tired. In whether I tell the truth when it would be easier to deflect. In whether I protect what’s vulnerable, in myself and in others. In whether I reach out to friends and family or just scroll more. In how I apply myself to boring admin tasks. In how I treat the guys at the car wash. In whether I show up with presence rather than irritation at home and at work. In whether I contribute more than I consume.
And yes, I choose this mission selfishly.
Because when I orient my life this way, I sleep better. I feel better in my skin and in the world. I feel less divided inside myself. I get a bit more done. I feel grounded in something that doesn’t disappear just because I relapse into negative moods rooted in my unsober mind.
In fact, this way of approaching life is the best medicine I know for returning to being emotionally sober.
What Wise Folks Have Been Telling Us Forever
There is nothing better for our emotional-relational health than living for something that cannot be bought, optimized, or prescribed. And there is nothing more threatening to systems that depend on our passivity.
So if you’re feeling blah, depleted, cynical, or just plain shitty, it’s not a glitch in your brain. It’s the deepest part of you asking:
- Do you need solitary self-care today, or, do you need to get out of self and into relationships?
- Do you need support and connection today, or do you need contemplative space?
- Are your priorities today aligned with your priorities in life?
- What kind of human do you want to be, one day at a time, and why?
Let those questions guide you. Not toward perfection. Toward participation. Toward aliveness. Toward a goodness that shows up, imperfectly but sincerely, in your activity with other humans.
That, at least, is what I’m trying to do. And honestly, it’s going quite well. Knock on wood. One day at a time.
