Human Nature and Choice

There are people who believe that people are born good, and there are people who believe that people are born evil. I think that both are part-right. Different people are born different, with some more good than evil and others more evil than good.

When I was talking, as a teenager attending a Christian school, to my mother about “common human nature,” she told me that I was wrong and that she herself had never wanted to hurt anyone. I realized that she was right. Some people are born better than others; and everyone else has the capacity of choice to decide to do the right thing, whatever their nature tells them.

If you are not of best nature: There is a solution, it is called choice. A person who does not come from a good place but comes to a better place is more capable of affectuating improvement than the person who has always been good. That is because he is conscious of what it takes to be a good person when you aren't one by nature; and he can guide other people who have imperfect natures to a better place.

Neither the people who think that people are naturally evil nor the people who think that people are naturally good are in the right. Some people are naturally good, some people are naturally evil, and regardless of one's nature it is possible to make rightful choice.

This – choice – is the true meaning of human nature. And the more people apply it, the better becomes the lot of humankind.