How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question

by Michael Schur

Being a good person is a job, and a hard one at that. But if you care about it, it may start to seem less like work and more like a puzzle you can solve. And in those rare times when you have to make a decision and you assemble the pieces in exactly the right way, so the image of what to do comes sharply into focus—you will feel alive and fulfilled and elated. You will feel like you’re flourishing. Which is really what Mom and I hope for you. We want you to be safe, from harm and from the pitfalls of the specific lives you’re leading. We want you to be happy—not in the eating-pizza-with-your-friends way, but in a deeper, more lasting way. We want you to be good—to act with good intentions, to cause minimal harm to those around you, to abide by rules you’d want everyone to follow and that other people wouldn’t reject as unfair. We want you to apologize when you screw up, and we want you to try to do better the next time. Doing all of these things can help you flourish—to be the very best versions of yourselves. But again, there will be plenty of other times when you do not flourish. When you straight-up blow it. And then you’ll try again, and you’ll blow it again, over and over, and you’ll be frustrated and you’ll feel awful. And if you’ve tried to do something good a thousand times, and you’ve failed a thousand times, and the people around you are miserable, and you’re at the end of your rope, and you’re losing faith in yourselves, you know what we want you to do then? Kee...