On those rare occasions when I find myself in a conversation about the inherent goodness of people, I like to talk about kids.

I went back to Colorado again this past weekend to look for wedding sites. While we were back there we spent some time with my parents, and they ended up showing Michelle a bunch of videos from my childhood. It was amazing to see how different my brother, my friends and I all looked. But what was most striking was how mean we were. The video is full of us making jabs at each other, hitting each other, and generally trying to make each other feel bad about themselves. It was quite a spectacle.

Now, one could simply chalk it up as ‘boys being boys’ and move on. But I think it deserves a little bit more attention. Think back to when you were a kid. Think about how mean people were to each other. Think about how badly you/they desired to fit in, to be a part of the ‘in crowd.’ Think about how, if you were to go inside the little minds of the boys and girls you knew growing up, you’d likely find an immense amount of insecurity and envy.

Think about the stories your parents used to tell you about your childhood. Think about your own children during their first few years – and be honest. Did their behavior express patience, gentleness, goodness, humility, self-control? Do they constantly look for opportunities to help out, to think of other before themselves? Do they voluntarily give up something that they have, something that they love, so that someone else can enjoy it?

We like to believe that deep down we’re very good people, and that perhaps the world, the media, or some mental illness is what corrupts people and turns them into something bad, something they’re not. But it seems to me that by and large, it isn’t the vices and the character flaws that we have to learn – it isn’t badness, evil, sin, whatever you want to call it – it doesn’t seem to me that society forces that down our throat. It seems to me that by the time we know what’s going on, we’re already very good at many of those things.

I grew up in an extremely loving household. I had two sets of fantastic parents who loved me and cared for me and made me feel special and important and worthwhile. I didn’t have anything traumatic happen to me – didn’t grow up in a bad neighborhood, never had to watch someone die, never was confronted directly with how unfair the world could be. And yet I was just as greedy and selfish and insecure as the next kid. I didn’t have to have a rough life to learn these things – they came quite naturally.

Even now, if I’m really honest with myself, I know that many of the things that would make me a ‘good person’ – the acts of genorosity and kindness and the like – even after all these years, they often are still more difficult than the alternative. Even though I feel extremely guilty after lying or being self-centered, though I kick myself after for not giving money to the guy on the street or for saying something in anger, if I step back and think about how it feels beforehand, it seems to me that the less virtuous action is the easier action to take. If someone says something stupid or offensive to me, it takes work to not say something sarcastic back to them. It takes work for me to take out my wallet, hand a guy a few bucks and walk away without thinking about how that guy should get a job or about how virtuous I must have looked to the passersby.

Lots of people like to believe in the goodness of people – they like to think that sure, there are exceptions like Hitler or Hussain or their third grade teacher or their boss, but those are exceptions. And the things that they do themselves that are less than virtuous (and that, if they were truly honest about it, happen all the time) are swept under the rug, or shrugged off with a “well, nobody’s perfect.”

Watching that tape this past wekend, thinking about my childhood and the childhood of pretty much anyone I’ve ever known, I know better.