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The Large Professor
Where Have All The Good People Gone?

By Phil Caravaggio
First published at www.johnberardi.com, Feb 9 2004..

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A few weeks ago, JB wrote a great column about New Year’s Resolutions, one that resonated both with me and with many of our readers. Having considered the topic over the last little while, I wanted this week to add my own two cents on resolutions – New Years or otherwise. So I stole JB’s prized nose hair trimmer and refused to give it back until he let me publish my thoughts.

To be honest, over this past month I've heard a lot of weak and stupid resolutions, a lot of the same old stuff that no one really plans to follow through on. Recently however I heard a great resolution that I haven’t been able to forget.

About two weeks back, I was sitting in one of my classes, suffering through one of those intolerable class participation segments – the kind in which the good professor interrogates the students en masse in order to breed unity among them. Just like on the first day of grade school:

“Ok now little Philly, stand up and tell the class what you did this summer!”

Except this class takes place at a respected institute of higher learning, and this exercise takes place once a week, running the full gamut of mundane topics. Normally this is an opportune time to pay off my sleep deficit. But on this particular day we covered New Year’s Resolutions, and this topic being already on my mind, I downed the rest of my green tea and decided to pay attention for once.

To get the party started, each student was asked to discuss their resolution, and of course all the usual suspects were there: the “I’m going to get in shape” guy, the “I’m going to quit smoking” guy, and the “I’m giving up chocolate” girl, just to name a few.

All noble goals, I guess. All very achievable. But none very inspiring.

The professor then turned to a good friend of mine.

“And your New Year’s Resolution?” he asked.

“This year, I’m going to be better," she replied. "I’m going to be good.”

As you might expect, the responses to her statement varied widely. Some laughed (either because they thought the statement naive or ridiculous or because they thought it unnecessary -- my friend is already closer to the good than most will ever be). Some seemed indifferent, others clueless. Some nodded approvingly, the nod we give when we witness an act of charity we would never perform ourselves.

My response? I was profoundly moved.

For a lowly writer like me, it is impossible to convey “profound.” Only the greatest writers can find the right words, craft the right sentences. Only the greatest painters can find the right colors, the right brushstrokes. Beethoven could add an unexpected grace note and end up with a masterpiece; I try to add a little spice to Jimi’s solo in “Purple Haze” and end up with a citation from the city for noise pollution. Some have it, some don’t.

As I thought more about this response, I realized that upon first glance, the response seemed simple and naïve.

But while I may not be able to capture the profound in writing, I know it when I see it. I know it when I hear it. And this, my friends, was it. A simple articulation of a powerful goal, a powerful motivation.

And yet we as a society are very prejudiced against such goals, against ideals in general and against "good" in particular. A person could be forgiven for their cynicism toward my friend's statement. After all, when a young child says, “I’ll be good,” you take it with a grain of salt. When a teenager says it to his or her parents before being left at home alone for the weekend, you take it with the whole shaker. And when your boyfriend or girlfriend says it before heading off to Cancun for spring break, you open your mouth and dive head first into the Dead Sea.

You're going to be "good"? Okay, that's nice, but what's the real goal? Why don't you just resolve to stop biting your nails?

You see, the traditional school of thought on goals is to make them “realistic,” “practical,” or “achievable.” However, in practice, this often means making them so small that they can be accomplished without any serious effort and so insignificant that even the achievement of them, aside from making us feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside, means very little.

The other problem is that it’s human nature to focus on the negative. Therefore, setting smaller goals usually means trading our positive goals for negative ones. Quitting smoking? Sure, that’s good. Giving up chocolate? A fine choice. Losing 20 lbs of fat? Another contender. However, none of these goals are exactly inspiring. They’re all about stripping something away from you, about reducing you to some basic state where you are fault-free.

The problem is that we respond very poorly to improvement by subtraction. What we need is improvement by replacement, by addition. Certainly we need to rid ourselves of self-destructive tendencies, but those tendencies must be replaced by better self-constructive ones. We need to add and not just take away. We need more good, not just less bad.

And we need an all-consuming reason, a "why" so grand, so powerful, so all consuming and inspiring that you have no choice but to take steps toward it. And to all you small goal people, you won’t ever be able to convince me that goals like that can’t be achieved. When the destination is attractive enough, we will always find small, daily steps that will move us toward this attractive place.

Sure, you could simply resolve to lose 10 lbs. But why not set a goal like:

“This year, I’m going to be a healthier person. I’m going to take my body composition and my overall health more seriously.”

Or how about going one step bigger, like my friend did? How about deciding to be good, in every sense of the word, in every area of your life? Now that’s a goal with potential. That’s a goal designed to move you toward the positive. That’s a goal that people can get behind.

Not to get morbid here, but one day you will die. So will I. And if the best thing someone can say about me in my eulogy is, “Well, he was a non-smoker,” my life will have been a abject failure. I will have failed if all they can engrave on my tombstone is:

Phil Caravaggio
Great Abs
Abstained From Chocolate

However, if, when it’s all over, the people who know me best can truly say that I was dedicated to being good, dedicated to noble goals, then my life will have been a success. And hey, if the fine ladies grieve the loss of both a good man and his great abs, all the better.

The bottom line is that even if you succeed in achieving your small, insignificant goals, you can still fail in life. What we focus on, we become. So if we trivialize our lives with small goals, we become trivial. If we elevate our lives, placing them on the same plane as our grandest imaginings, we become grand.

So I had better get started right away. Like my friend, this year I plan to get my bearings from the good, letting the other chips fall where they may.