Students’ Thoughts on What Makes a Good Person for Random Acts of Kindness Day

According to Merriam-Webster, a good person is honest, helpful, and morally good. A bad person would then be the opposite: a liar, self-centered, and uncaring. Random Acts of Kindness Day is celebrated February 17th every year. 

Random Acts of Kindness is a website that is based solely on the national holiday and trying to make it an all the time holiday. According to their website, Random Acts of Kindness Foundation is a small non-profit organization that invests into making kindness a norm. 

The organization is rooted in the belief that all people can connect through kindness and that kindness can be taught. On the website, there are a variety of sections to choose from based on places you can be kind, such as kindness in school, kindness at home, and kindness at work.

Haley Podd, a junior at Arrowhead, said, “A good person is kind, trustworthy, respectful, caring and they are reliable. They talk nicely with other people and they give back by doing volunteer work. A good person always respects others and doesn’t force things onto people.”

According to Mental Flow, there are 15 attributes of a good person. Those attributes are that a person is in an honest relationship, compliments others when deserved, calls their parents regularly, is polite, and they are kind to everyone and generous with their belongings. 

A good person also remembers their manners, thinks of others, goes the extra mile, is kind to loved ones, smiles, makes the best of every situation, is able to make friends easily, doesn’t take things for granted, and the person is consistent. 

Sophie Nowak, a junior said, “People can practice empathy by putting themselves in other people’s shoes because you don’t know what someone is going through until you really are them and even if you think they’re telling you everything they probably aren’t. There’s just so much you don’t know so just try to be understanding and empathetic.”

According to Study Finds, nearly one in two people believe they are the best person they know. Of 2,000 US residents, 81% think humans are inherently good. Three in four believe they themselves are fundamentally good.

Nowak said, “I wouldn’t consider myself a bad person but I think I have a lot of work to do to be considered a fully good person. I try to think before I say or do something because your actions have consequences and you have to think about how other people are feeling. I know how I’m feeling but I don’t know how the rest of the world is feeling so I just have to be aware of what I’m doing.”

According to Betterup, a bad person is someone who is negative, judgemental, and dishonest. They are often stubborn, arrogant, and lack empathy for others. They do not care if they are reckless, they’re constantly arguing and short-tempered. They like to be in control and can be self-centered, greedy, and sneaky.

“I don’t think I’m a very good person because I make everybody in my life miserable and I make their lives so much harder, especially my parents’ life and my siblings and ‘friends’ and I make my entire personality about how depressed I am when I always say I’m trying to get better but not actually trying to get better. I feel like I’ve been mean to other people before, especially when I was younger. I would make fun of people and talk about people behind their backs, even friends. I used to purposely leave people out and just make other people feel bad,” said Podd.