I remember back when I was in Middle school the teacher asking everyone "What do you want to be when you grow up"? Despite trying to call out many ideas i really didn't know. As I grew and advanced to high school and Junior college I still did not know what I eventually wanted to be. Through the years I worked fast food, deliveries, security guard, car sales and eventually signed up with the Navy (Submarine Duty). However, around my thirties, I realized that all these jobs and career moves were just jobs and distractions. Around the time I found my spiritual calling as a Buddhist I realized that what I really wanted to be was 'A GOOD MAN'.
For over Twenty years now I have struggled to live up to the idea of a good man. The problem I found is we all have ways of convincing ourselves that what we do or have done is justified. trying to live with our actions without ever feeling guilt. I know that I have made bad decisions in the past and although none of them are horrific (like Murder, Emotional Abuse, Physical abuse... etc) I still feel the guilt in some way and will always strive to be better to, hopefully, overcome any negative Karma I may have caused. I will always believe in second chances and never judged someone by who or what they were. I mean would you deny a person the Nobel Prize for Curing Cancer just because you discovered that when they were 10 they were a bully?
The judgement of whether I am a good man is not necessarily a title I can give myself. The greatest fear to anyone who wants to be a Good Man is that secretly they really aren't. We can all believe that in certain circumstances we would act appropriately. I would like to believe that I would run into a burning building to save others, that I would place myself as a shield to protect someone from gunfire, that I would fall on a live grenade if it would save others or that I would stand up to someone bullying others. These are all noble actions but they also show a truth about oneself. I can believe that I would do these actions but most find that when in those situations the true self takes over. So that is my greatest fear that given the right opportunity to think and act for others that I would fail.
To continue on my path of being a good man I developed my CODE (or code of conduct) and I highly recommend to anyone who strives to be be something better to develop your own:
"Never give up, Never give in,
Never Cowardly or Cruel,
Don’t acquiesce to the Bully,
Feed the Gold Dragon,
Remember the Way,
and NEVER,
let them see you Bleed!"
