Since childhood, the one thing my parents taught me above all was to be a good person. Little did they know they were dealing with a future philosophy major who’d spend years pondering what it means to be good. And after all that thinking, I can proudly say I’ve found the answer.

Sorry, did I say the answer? I meant three answers. (This is philosophy, after all.) That said, I do have a favorite — and it’s guided every decision I’ve made for nearly three decades.

One answer is, good people are those whose actions have positive consequences. Ex: An unscrupulous businesswoman who earns billions through dishonest means, then donates the majority of it. This is called consequentialism.

Another says good people are those who know what’s right and wrong, and follow the rules without exception. Ex: A humble shopkeeper who pays his share of taxes, follows his duties at work and home, isn’t excessively kind, but never crosses any lines. This is deontology.

And a third says goodness is about the journey, not just the destination; it’s about the virtues you cultivate on the way to doing good, not just doing your duty or getting certain consequences. Ex: A righteous, courageous young woman who welcomes refugees into her home, becoming close friends with them during the two years of their stay and beyond. 

This is virtue ethics — and it’s my first-ever, and favorite, philosophy lesson.

It’s about the journey…

That last example? That’s not made up. It’s the real story of Marisia Szul, who lived in rural Poland and hid my grandmother Manya and another family from the Nazis. Marisia and Manya’s experiences were practically my bedtime stories as a child, along with those of my three other Holocaust survivor grandparents.

I learned that Marisia said, “My mother always taught me that God made everyone the same…everyone has the right to live.” In this way, she was guided initially by right and wrong — score one for deontology — but in the following decades of friendship with Manya and attendance at our family weddings and Bar Mitzvahs, she proved there was something deeper to her motivations. Her rules required only that she ensure our right to live; to love us was purely her choice.

Similarly, for my grandparents, the purpose of life was not merely to survive, but to cherish life and constantly cultivate one’s spiritual and social virtues; “to be to God and to man,” in my grandfather’s words.

Marisia and my grandparents probably hadn’t heard of virtue ethics, but it’s what they taught me: that being good is a process, not an outcome.

A long process at that. Turns out that when you’re trying to perfect the way you do everything, you’re never done. Instead, every action and decision gains a profound weightiness, as if this is the moment that you prove your goodness — no, this moment — no, this moment.

On one hand, that’s a good thing, because it means I try to aim for thoughtfulness and balance in everything I do. On the other, virtue ethics and its lifelong grip on me often leads to overthinking, anxiety, and hesitation.

Both sides are evident throughout my life, from the small details to the big decisions. From the way I organize my toiletries to my devotion to intricate cooking projects; from my bespoke productivity systems to my career spanning three cities and as many industries. Even my decision to study philosophy wasn’t simple: a week before the declaration deadline, I was still torn between it and public policy (and, earlier on, eight other options).

Virtue ethics is about the “how” and “why” questions more than the “what.” That love for the process means it takes a lot longer to reach the goal. Hence why good people — more specifically, virtue ethicists — finish last. But when they finally do, there’s goodness in every step.

…but the destination matters, too

Let’s be real: finishing last sucks. While all process-obsessed people wish they could have half the confidence of Apple and its famous “not first, but best” strategy, the fact is that if you lose enough sprints, it can start to feel like you’ll never win the marathon. Constantly watching other people get ahead of you is simply demoralizing.

And I’ve been watching that my whole life. See, my grandparents are the most influential set of four people in my life, but they’re not the only one. The other is my three older brothers and I — four boys born within five years. If that doesn’t sound competitive enough, toss our family history into the mix, and we each feel the immense responsibility to live up to our grandparents’ legacy in some way.

No pressure.

Among my brothers, I was not only born last, but in big and small ways, I was also the last to get with the program.

Growing up, there were countless instances of me standing at the stove, cooking my preferred meal while my family ate theirs, then finished and left the table by the time I finally sat down. Or of car rides where they idly gossiped about this teacher or that friend, piquing my interest only once they got to the punchline, by which point it was too late to repeat the backstory.

It goes back even further, to when I was a baby. My oldest brother took a piece of cardboard and wrote each of our names on it, then the activity we were each known for. He was the artist; the next was a musician; the next, an athlete; and Matthew…well, he was potty-trained.

Remarkably, that framework holds strong nearly three decades later: My dad, a dentist, often tells his patients, “My oldest is an architect and the next two are doctors, what they’ve always wanted to be. My last, I don’t know what he is, but I know he’ll be something.”

My brothers got the memo on how to live and they’re sticking to it. They are, it seems, deontologists. For them, goodness means achieving noble goals; process is secondary. They chose clearly defined careers, endured years of training, and now they’re healing the sick and building grand structures — apt ways to honor the family.

For me, it was never so simple. That I ended up so process-oriented was both cause and effect of observing my brothers’ goal-oriented, straightforward paths, frustrated that mine wasn’t: Beginning in my adolescence, I began to believe something was wrong with me, made efforts to be more like them, felt I needed to prove my goodness just to catch up. In college, as I met more and more people who seemed effortlessly perfect, my inner critic turned on itself like an auto-immune disorder, criticizing itself for being so critical.

My faith in playing the long game, patiently adding layer after layer on a hard-earned foundation of goodness, began to fray even before it was fully woven.

We can choose both

Of course, there’s no answer to whether being process-oriented or goal-oriented is better. What finally showed me how to embrace both is something I’ve hated my entire life — until recently.

You might think a house full of boys would be obsessed with sports. Quite the opposite. I had a particular aversion: for most of my life, I believed anything valuable I could offer the world would come from my head, and the rest of my body was there simply to bring it from place to place.

But a few years ago, with nothing else to do during the pandemic, it clicked. First with Formula 1, then with basketball, and then the floodgates opened. The players, the drama, the unscripted finales — sports, I realized, was the greatest TV show that always gets renewed.

Most illuminating is how sports celebrates both processes and goals. Managers patiently assemble their star lineups, players glorify their routines, and teams learn that adversity is part of the journey, not the end of it. Yet none of that really matters if the organization never wins a championship.

The NBA’s Boston Celtics, who just won a record 18th championship, and who happen to be my favorite team, are a perfect example. For years — until this season’s victory — critics said they had a too-cool attitude, because historically, most teams this good would’ve fought their way to a championship much quicker. But after they won, their cool-headed approach suddenly became their trademark. “I told you,” the coach said after the final game; in other words, trust the process, and you’ll get the outcome you deserve.

Marisia, my grandparents, and my parents taught me that goodness, how you do things, matters above all. My brothers taught me that goals, what you do, can’t be left out of the equation. And a new passion — fittingly, one that gets me out of my head — taught me where greatness comes from: A process that yields opportunity, and a goal that motivates you to grab it.

Virtue ethics has and always will guide my definition of goodness. But among the virtues, perhaps I simply forgot one of the most important: Courage, and the victory it brings.

🎁 Recommendations

🎥 Ghost in the Shell [sci-fi, philosophy, animated; 1h22m]

“Why would you wish to [stay the same]? All things change in a dynamic environment. Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you.”

🎵 Bonny Light Horseman, Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free [folk; 1h3m]

Saw them play in Brooklyn a few weeks back. Beautiful melodies, harmonies, lyrics. A relaxing listen for when you have friends over.

🏀 Legendary NBA coach Red Auerbach on what makes a player great [1m]

“It's the ability to perform under dire situations. In other words, what does he do in the clutch? What has he won?… There’s a lot of athletes, when it comes to taking that last shot where you win or lose, they shy away from it. I like the guy who's going to say, ‘Give it to me! I'll take that shot!’ and that's what makes greatness.”