Chapters

Mapping the route

The journey starts with you, and then expands outward, so that’s how this book is structured:

Part one looks to the personal self and why we feel off-balance.

We’ll look at how modern life contributes to feelings of personal instability and how intentionally minimizing extremes in the ways we think, feel, and find fulfillment can immediately help us feel more steady. In the end, we’ll see that being rooted in decency—living life in-line with what you think is right—builds an inner self-respect that is not easily swayed by circumstance.

Part two looks at how we’re not just individuals, but individuals who live in a society.

We’ll look at why we voluntarily limit our own freedoms and control our own behavior in order to gain the benefits of living in a group. The current culture of nasty divisiveness and self-absorption runs counter to our own best interest and to the evolutionary wisdom humans have gained about how to live well together. We’ll look at some of the biological and cultural reasons today’s Us versus Them atmosphere is so powerful and we’ll consider some ways to change it. By the end of the section, we’ll see how we don’t have to be perfect, but by simply being decent, we can create ripple effects that come rolling back to improve our world.

Part three explores the question: What does it mean to be a decent person?

In a time when so many people think they’re “right” while so many others think they’re “wrong,” we’ll look to history and world belief systems to find common values that have guided human behavior for thousands of years. We’ll use those values to create a moral compass, viewed through a modern perspective, that enables each of us to make decisions that are rooted in decency.