How To Be Perfect

By Michael Schur

This book is a pop-read through major branches of moral philosophy-- virtue ethics, deontology, utilitarianism, existentialism, contractulism. 

Schur doesn't come to any hard and fast conclusions on how to live. Of course he can't. How could he? But he does offer suggestions that it hopes we would think though.

Try to be a good person. 

There will always be situations where you don't know the right choice. Make a choice. Own it. Apologize if you are wrong, Don't be a jerk about it. 

More than anything, we are defined by our choices and our actions. Choose. Act. Learn. Don't get stuck.

"In the words of Samuel Beckett: Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

"The best thing about Aristotle's 'constant  trying, constant searching' is what results from it: a mature yet still pliable person, brimming with experiences both old an new, who doesn't;t rely solely on familiar routines or dated information about how the world works."

"(when you fight against progress) We're actively not trying to be better, and worse, we're seeing the not-trying as a virtue. This benefits no one."

"Where do you draw the line? As the comedian John Oliver likes to say: somewhere. We draw it in different places, but we need to draw it, each of us, for ourselves."

How to deal with someone with very different (wrong?) values? Think... "I love this person. This person is causing me anguish. We treat those thoughts with equal weight. And we hope the person in question will do the same."