Are You A Good Person?

What would you say defines you as a person?

Have you ever thought about that?

I mean really, how do you decide what kind of person you are?

Is it your age? The people you hang out with? Your job, your marital or parental status, your income, your taste in music, your past, your ambitions, your religion, or the mistakes you"ve made?

Or is it none of those things, but those are all small ways of describing you, not defining you?

I guess I'm wondering where the line is between descriptions and definitions.

If you've lied before, are you automatically a liar? Is that WHO YOU ARE in bold face type, a forever aspect of what makes you....you? Or is that just something you've done, or sometimes still do, but overall you're not a dishonest person?

If you've cheated, does that make you a cheater, forever after?

Where is the line between the mistakes you've made, and who you are?

I guess you might say it's your character, but what makes that up?

Again, would it be the choices you've made in the past, or the intentions you put behind your actions, even if they turn out horribly, horribly wrong?

If you always have the best intentions, but just fuck everything up despite those good intentions, are you still a good person? Do you still have solid character?

Maybe it's your level of self awareness, and what amount of energy you put into self improvement.

Maybe it's how honest and up front you are about being a flawed and imperfect human being.

Maybe it's your motivations, your priorities and your actions, and whether or not the bad things you've done were really mistakes, or things that you did because they made you happy, regardless of how they made others feel, and you just aren't sorry about it.

But that would imply, I suppose, that whether or not you're a good person in spite of your flaws is determined by what level of guilt you feel about the things you've done.

How sorry you are.

Or maybe there is no solid answer to this question, and we all just decide for ourselves what we're worth, and whether we are good or bad, and it doesn't matter because everyone you meet is going to make their own decisions about you too, and not one of them are the end all be all opinion on the matter.

Maybe you just do the best you can, and try to take care of the ones you love as much as possible, and hope that there is some kind of grace waiting for you when you fail miserably.

When you come up short. 

When your actions are not in accordance to your real feelings or priorities.

When the mistakes you've made seem unforgivable.

Maybe you do what you can to learn from them, to never make them again, and hope that any bridges you've burned can be repaired over time.

Because none of us are perfect, and all of us are flawed, but as long as you can put the feelings of the people you love before your own, at least as often as possible, you're still a good person.

Maybe there's hope for all of us, yet.