Are You Good or Great?

By Christian Kornelius

A true beginning is EARNED, not GIVEN. When we were born, that wasn't our true beginning because it wasn't by us. But we can earn our own which can happen somewhere between birth and death. To then be confronted with a choice to choose one out of the many choices. Whichever is chosen, it'll be the foundation for the rest of our lives. That's the very reason why this book exists. Out of all the countless forms of choices, it has been ultimately narrowed down to this book. And in a way, the book is a starter—a starter for the true beginning of everyone's life.

----------------------------------------

 

"Who you WERE doesn't have to be who you ARE."

 

Ever since the author was taught in the cruelest school of all time, he has ultimately believed in that statement. And throughout that teaching, he was mostly slapped in the face many times by the teacher. All with the message that he was unbelievably pathetic. What was the name of that school? It's called, "the School of Life." But it showed him the root of the problem—why he was in a low moral standard. And out of wanting to be better, he experienced and discovered this concept of GOOD & GREAT within the moral perspective. Until his death, he will never graduate from the School of Life. He's still a student to the best teacher of all time and is still a learner to always progresses for the better.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Kornelius
• Release date: Mar 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215710326

Book preview

RIGHTS

Copyright © 2023 by Christian Kornelius.

Cover Design by Christian Kornelius.

Editing by Christian Kornelius.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

DEDICATION

––––––––

Here’s to the HOPELESS,

those who feel LOST,

the THINKERS,

the WONDERERS,

and the ones who DARE

to seek the TRUTH,

THIS IS FOR YOU.

Table of Contents

RIGHTS

DEDICATION

Part I  ◆ THE OPTIONS

1: What Does It Mean to Be GOOD?

2: What Does It Mean to Be GREAT?

3: Which One Is Better?

Part II  ✖ THE PROBLEMS

4: Can One Be Both GOOD and GREAT?

5: The Opposites

Part III  ▲ WHAT IT TAKES

6: Choosing It

7: Dealing With It

8: Can One Change From GOOD to GREAT or GREAT to GOOD?

Part IV  ★ WHAT’S NEXT

9: Raising One’s Moral Standard

10: Cultural Environment

11: Doing It All

12: What Better Way Is There to Live?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Part I  ◆ THE OPTIONS

1: What Does It Mean to Be GOOD?

––––––––

The Chosen Meaning

The word good has lots of meanings. Whether it's defining the measure of quality, action, or situation. But a good character is defining the measure of morals. The value of that character. What process that the character represents. Who that person, group, company, or etc. is. A good character. That’s the meaning that this book will mostly be focused on.

So what is a good character? Do good? Yes. High on integrity? Yeah. Operate within that integrity, sure. Contributing to oneself, well... yes. Whether it’s only or primarily, that character is a champion to oneself.

Experiences

There's a definite need to love ourselves. If there’s one thing that will never leave us alone, it’s ourselves. Whether it’s called our soul or spirit, we can't separate from ourselves in this thing called life. By the way, it may never leave. Even when one reaches the end of one’s life and goes into the afterlife, if such a thing is believed. But let's just stick with life, because that's as far as our current reality goes. And without a doubt, we need to love ourselves. To take care, to improve, and to celebrate our well-being.

To take care of our well-being means we’re able to look out for ourselves. Like when we are sick for example, we are able to help ourselves with our own recovery. Even if we pay someone else to take care of us, it's still at our own expense. In every person’s life, there will be a time when we need to already have the ability to be independent. And not to always rely on others. We can still ask for help. But we must also learn from that help rather than be attached.

Improvement on our well-being means becoming a better version of ourselves. For example, like when we make mistakes, we suck it up and learn not to make the same mistake again. We do it now. Not for today, but for tomorrow. We want to have that high standard and that self-respect because we owe them to ourselves. Be the best we can today and learn to be better for tomorrow.

To celebrate our well-being means we go to satisfy ourselves. Stuff like buying the things we’ve always wanted. We’ve been through so much hard work to then pass some sort of milestone that we’d set out to achieve. So to create the memory that we did it, we do things to celebrate and to symbolize our achievements.

Overall, to love ourselves is to do things that bring the best out of ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with striving for our personal goals and benefits, as long as our way of striving is within high levels of integrity. The big reason someone is a GOOD person is because that person is a character of morality, high on integrity, and genuine. If we’re GOOD people, we are open about our motives to those who are involved as to why we're striving for that goal. We don't lie and/or fake our way through just to get what we want. But rather we’re being responsible for our actions at not only striving for the things we want, but to strive it right. Some might say it's selfish to focus primarily on our self-interest. Well, that depends. Because selfishness is stealing other people’s rights for the sake of our own self-interest. But being morally GOOD is focusing primarily on ourselves while also being on the side of morality.

IN NEED OF A JOB

Let's say you need a job. But you want a job with a friendly working space and a high salary. So the search begins in the e-wilderness, a.k.a. the internet, for the kind of job you want. Sometime later, you come across that job you want. You go and learn more about the required things. And it also says, upon submitting your résumé, you’ll have the chance to get an interview and go through the internship program. In the end, only one candidate gets chosen for a position at the company.

While you’re crafting your résumé, you feel the nervousness due to your fear of not being called back for the interview. So while hope that they’re willing to give you the chance on an interview for the position and tell them more about your credentials, you submit your résumé. Three days of more nervousness have passed, you finally get the call you’ve been waiting for. And the company you applied for has approved your résumé to then tells you that you’re scheduled for the interview. So for a brief moment, you feel a sense of relief. But then slowly, the nervousness returns just a couple of days before your interview. Then the night before your interview, out of human error, you forget to set your alarm for the next morning. You somehow wake up close to nine in the and your interview is at 9:30 am. Panic sets in. You skip breakfast and shower. Then get ready and off you go. Fast forward a bit, you end up ten minutes late. And that’s your first impression to the company. Luckily for you, the interviewers are still available. You explain to them what really happened. Then they consult with each other a bit while your heart is racing and your mind is full of worries. But they give you a pass on this one and thus the interview begins.

You explain your credentials, tell them more about yourself than what’s on your résumé and feel much relief in the end. Then you’re told to wait for ten minutes while they finalize their decision. You can only hope that they’re willing to accept your credentials and who you are. Till finally, you receive the news. The sense of relief is flowing in you because you’ve been accepted into the internship program.

Then on to next week, you start as an intern. Everyone is briefed and assigned tasks by the supervisors. At some time during the internship program, you and many of the other candidates face some struggles to get the job done. You’ve seen the nervousness from others and noticed the ways they deal with it to get the job done. Some dirty tactics, but you ignore them. You also get to socialize with your supervisors and fellow candidates. They get to know more about you and you get to know more about the company’s culture. And sometime later, your skills have improved a lot compared to when you first started. As time passes by, the internship program is coming to an end. Till finally, it’s over. Then everyone goes back home and awaits the call to find out whether they’re chosen or not.

Looking back at that story, you could’ve crafted and submitted a fake résumé to ensure your acceptance to the internship program. You could’ve made up some lies to justify why you were late for the interview. You could’ve cheated to get the job done like some of the other candidates did. And you could’ve lied about your personal life during your socialization on improving how others were seeing