The Lost Art & Practice of Being a Good Human
A note to the reader:
This isn’t a self-help guide, a productivity system, or a set of steps to follow.
The Good Human Practice exists as a quiet space for reflection — a pause to consider what it means to live with purpose, not just profit, in a world that often feels fractured.
Each edition offers a single idea and an invitation to notice something differently. Not to fix you, but to help you see yourself — and others — more clearly.
There are no answers here. Only questions worth sitting with.
Imagine if we treated mathematics the way we treat goodness.
Imagine if we never taught children addition or subtraction, never showed them how to solve equations, never guided them through the principles of geometry — but still expected them to somehow figure it all out on their own.
Imagine if people were expected to learn to drive by osmosis, by reading about it in dusty textbooks, and not by watching others drive or getting behind the wheel themselves. Trying it out, making mistakes, being corrected and shown the right way.
It would be absurd.
Yet this is exactly how we approach the far more complex challenge of being good.
We assume that goodness is innate. That ethical behavior will simply emerge. That being a positive force in the world requires no instruction, no modeling, no practice.
This assumption — that we are born knowing how to be good — may be one of the most damaging myths of our time.
Let me illustrate with two train rides.
The first happens every day in our cities. A crowded subway car. An elderly person stands, swaying with each lurch of the train. Young people sit beneath signs that explicitly state these seats should be given to the elderly or infirm. No one looks up. No one moves.
Not out of cruelty — but out of habit.
When my wife was visibly pregnant with our daughter in the UK, she had the curious effect of putting everyone on the train instantly to sleep. People would “doze off” the moment she boarded, so they wouldn’t have to offer their seat.
The second happened during a visit to Japan with my wife and our six-year-old daughter. A suburban commuter train, early in the morning. A group of schoolgirls, around eight years old, sat chatting in their uniforms. An elderly couple boarded.
Immediately — without prompting — all the girls stood and insisted the couple take their seats. When the couple politely declined, saying they were only riding a few stops, the girls persisted. They refused to take no for an answer and the couple finally accepted.
Same situation. Radically different outcome.
Why?
I later learned that those Japanese schoolgirls hadn’t simply been told they should give up their seats. They had practiced it. In school, they role-played these exact scenarios. Good behavior wasn’t just explained — it was taught, rehearsed, and modeled.
Goodness, in other words, wasn’t assumed. It was cultivated.
When No One Teaches
The difference shows up elsewhere too.
When I was growing up, eating out at a restaurant came with clear expectations. We sat in our seats. We used indoor voices. We minded our manners. The message — mostly unspoken — was simple. Public spaces have rules, and being part of society means learning to respect these rules.
Fast-forward to February 2023. A family restaurant in Tinton Falls, New Jersey — Nettie’s House of Spaghetti — announced they would no longer serve children under ten. Their explanation was painful but unmistakable. Children were running through the restaurant, creating safety risks for themselves and for servers carrying hot plates. Parents, the owners said, seemed disengaged.
This isn’t a judgment about parenting styles or cultural norms. Children have always been children.
The question is simpler — and more uncomfortable.
If no one teaches the basic rules of shared life, how will the next generation learn?
And what happens when those lessons are never learned?
A child who never learns to regulate their behavior in a restaurant at seven may seem like a minor issue. But what happens at seventeen? Or twenty-seven? When the same lack of awareness shows up in workplaces, communities, and relationships?
Previous generations understood something we seem to have forgotten: goodness doesn’t sustain itself.
They built systems — imperfect ones — to support it. Families, schools, religious institutions, and communities all played a role in making values visible, practised, and reinforced.
Many of those structures have eroded. And while their decline has freed us from certain constraints — often rightly — it has also left a vacuum.
We have gained autonomy.
But we have lost structure.
We have gained independence.
But we have lost instruction.
The costs show up everywhere: rising anxiety, declining trust, social fragmentation, and a growing sense that something essential is missing.
Not information.
Not opportunity.
But orientation.
What these stories raise, for me, is a simple but uncomfortable idea: goodness is not automatic. It is learned.
Not through lectures.
Not through slogans.
But through example, practice, and attention.
Think again about those schoolgirls on the train. They didn’t act out of abstract moral reasoning. They acted out of habit — a habit shaped by what they had seen, practised, and absorbed.
Goodness, like any skill, grows where it is made visible and lived.
This isn’t a call to fix society.
And it isn’t a manifesto.
It’s an invitation to notice where goodness is being modeled — and where it isn’t. To reflect on what we absorbed growing up. And to consider, quietly, what we might choose to model now.
For the next few days, simply pay attention.
Notice moments when you’re unsure what the right action is.
Notice small opportunities for kindness or restraint.
Notice when you act automatically — and when you hesitate.
You don’t need to correct anything.
Just notice.
That, too, is a practice.
In future editions, I’ll explore different facets of this question — through stories, research, and reflection — not to prescribe answers, but to make what often goes unspoken a little more visible.
The goal isn’t to become perfect.
It’s to become more conscious.
That’s where goodness usually begins.
A closing note
The Good Human Practice is a biweekly reflection on living with purpose, not just profit, in an increasingly noisy and fractured world.
This isn’t self-help. It’s slow, meaningful practice.
If this essay stayed with you, sit with it. Notice what it surfaced. Return to it when you need to. If it feels worth passing along, you can do that too.
For leadership and decision-making work under uncertainty, I write a separate publication called The Uncertainty E.D.G.E.™.