Looking for the Good
A bonfire’s glow reflects off the old Morse Dairy Farm milking barn on County Road (Calais, VT)
“Be on the lookout for the visible signs of invisible good. They’ll tell you more than the asterisms in the sky.”
In her seminal work on American etiquette, Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home (published in 1922), the late great Emily Post wrote that the Best Society of people is one made up of individuals who show in their everyday actions and words that they care about others. She was writing in an era in which immigrants were pouring into our county from all over the world with such varied manners and customs that living and working alongside each other was leading to historic levels of conflict and misunderstanding, causing upheaval and disagreements over which social norms should be accepted as standard in their newfound homeland.
Emily wrote a practical guidebook that emphasized showing, through the small particulars, an ethic of care for self and other. Everyday Americans latched onto her work and it became wildly popular, the second best selling book to The Bible in her day and she, a divorced mother at the age of 50, became a sensation and guiding light in an era of cultural transition. Pageant magazine declared her, in 1950, second only to Eleanor Roosevelt as “American’s Most Powerful Woman.”
In 1922 Emily Post used her skills as a writer and experience in society to create an etiquette guidebook for Americans that became the second best-selling book in the world and shifted the way our country saw everyday manners and ethics.
Last spring at Harvard for an independent study with my advisor, Professor Charles Hallisey, an authority on the ethical teachings of the Buddha and an expert in Sinhala literature and early Theravada Buddhism, I circled back to my upbringing in Atlanta, Georgia, looking to relate the Buddha’s teachings to the relational wisdom of the women who had impacted my cultural upbringing as a Southern girl. In my final essay for this project I paid particular attention to my childhood pediatrician’s writings (centenarian Dr. Leila Denmark and her Every Child Should Have a Chance) and also to Emily Post’s work, viewing her teaching of etiquette (or, The Science of Living) through my newly introduced lens of early Buddhist ethics. Feeling inspired by this connection and the practical implications for today’s cultural conversations, I turned in my final projects for graduation and went directly into studying business etiquette with Emily’s great-grandson, Daniel Post Senning, one of the current day guardians of her family’s legacy.
Dan’s mentorship helped me realize and articulate my own personal philosophy of care as an American woman in the year 2024. This modern etiquette, what I would call a kind of ethi~quette, builds on the teachings of many of my mentors from various religious backgrounds including scholars of Hinduism, Christianity, Taoism and Buddhism—individuals like Professor Richard Sugarman (an Emmanuel Levinas scholar), Polly Young-Eisdendrath (a Zen Buddhist teacher and Jungian psychoanalyst) and former Duke chaplain Rev. Elmer Hall (a Quaker and Taoist).
“This modern etiquette, what I would call a kind of ethi~quette, builds on the teachings of many of my mentors from various religious backgrounds including scholars of Hinduism, Christianity, Taoism and Buddhism.”
Each and every one of these teachers has taught me, at various points in my life, through work and study, a practical ethic of care based on the small particulars of how we live our lives together in relationship. But my time with Professor Hallisey in his courses on “Friendship and a Life Well-Lived” and “Friendship and the Religious Life” allowed me to finally see the design of this daily personal ethic as a superpower to change society and make significant cultural impact, leading me to create a kind of game that I now play daily—a game I’m going to share with you now. And this game I call Looking for the Good.
Now for the fun part—how to play it! It’s not a gratitude exercise or a list of what I’m thankful for that I journal at the end of the day or reflect on around the table once a year at Thanksgiving dinner. Instead, it’s a practice of slowing down to notice all around me the things that are working, that are good and right.
In the store shopping for groceries the other day I noticed when speaking to an old customer from my restaurant, Linda, the way her spirit turned on when she shared about making food for friends and delivering local farm eggs to our mutual friends Paul and Maya. Her eyes lit up with goodness. Getting coffee this week I started chatting with the clerk, Dahlia, and I noticed her delight in telling me about how happy and contented she was in her life after recent changes; curious to know more, I asked if she would tell me why that was. And yesterday when riding in the passenger seat on the interstate, I saw how focused my eighteen year old son was driving alongside tractor trailers and tourist traffic, taking care of me as an incredibly responsible driver.
Linda shares with me how doing what she can is her way of changing the world.
I noticed yesterday the kindness of my neighbors, Drew, Laurie and May, when my holiday guests, family and I showed up unannounced, needing a warm place to stay and a cup of coffee while the Woodbury fire department checked out a fire hazard at our house. Later, I noticed the subsequent care in which the fire chief and his crew went over the details of their inspection, assuring me that everything was AOK to resume our holiday cooking.
The list goes on and on. The implication of beginning to look for what actually is right all the time is a game I now play every day. This focus has created a powerful mindset shift away from a negativity bias in my life towards a feeling, I’ve noticed, of more agency and power to share goodness and kindness with others.
The key to mastering and enjoying this game so far has been my receptivity as the player. I am the one who has to be on the hunt, investigating like a seasoned journalist and consistently cultivating an openness to wonder, asking both why and what is this all about? What does this invisible good all around me actually say that’s not being spelled out directly? Can I stay open, even through challenges, to surprise and joy, seeing through small particulars a hidden world full of vast and countless omens that allow me to approach my life and relationships as an experience of something higher than the seemingly mundane?
“The key to mastering and enjoying this game so far has been my receptivity as the player. ”
Professor Hallisey’s work challenged me to ask myself, what is my best choice? What is the best way to live? And I would share that as a result of choosing to look for good and playing this simple daily game, my cup feels more full to share good with others.
Me with Professor Charles Hallisey and Bhante Kusala (Ven. Derangala Kusalagnana Thero), a resident Theravada Buddhist monk at Peace House (Cambridge, MA).
In our now global society, connected through a single click of a button, we have plenty of room for the same kind of misunderstanding and mistrust that was running rampant in Emily Post’s day. Choosing a way into relationship premised on seeing the best in each other allows us to hit a cultural reset as we explore how to live better together in this new era. My developing personal philosophy of ethi~quette is premised on starting from a place of seeing and believing it’s possible to create this best global society and I’m encouraged when I see how many card-carrying members are already around me, modeling goodness in their daily lives.
“A cloud,” Professor Hallisey says, “can just be a cloud or it can be a sign of visible good.”
Try looking for more of the visible good today and see if you notice something changing for the better inside you, those around you and in the wider community of your own Best Society as well.
Yours truly,
