Reeling from a personal crisis and a sense of despair about the world, a woman wrote to the psychologist Carl Jung. His advice was to “quietly do the next and most necessary thing,” that if she took the smallest, most viable step in front of her, she would always be making progress, always be doing something meaningful.

Until we stop debating, we can’t start doing. We keep debating so we don’t have to start doing.

We worked hard because it was our job, because we wanted to realize our potential. The financial compensation is something we are glad to get but also understand is extra. We earned it once, we can earn it again. And what kind of person values their fun—or redundant security—over the alleviation of someone else’s suffering?

No, we have an obligation… …to the people who helped us …to the places that made us …to those who have been loyal to us …to the truth and to our cause …to the downtrodden and besieged and the friendless. We can’t wash our hands. We can’t stand on the sidelines. We can’t abandon ship.

While we cannot change the past, we can—by refusing to deny it—do better in the future. In so doing, we begin to make amends for what has happened.

dilemmas and decisions they would find themselves in. “Life is not meaningless for the man who considers certain actions wrong simply because they are wrong, whether or not they violate the law,” he once explained. “This kind of moral code gives a person a focus, a basis on which to conduct himself.”

Malachi says that this is unacceptable; it goes against God’s commandments…. The weakest in society must not be wronged. We must focus our attention on them.”

We will regret many things in this life. But we’ll never regret being the kind of person who keeps their word.

The Greeks had a word, pleonexia—self-serving—which they said was the worst kind of life. We might say that justice, virtue—being good and not just great—is the antithesis of this.