Dear LPG,

Here is a question that I am sure we have all asked ourselves at times over the years of our relatively longer lives, and that I think that each and every one of us continue to let cross our minds whatever stage of life we have reached.

I say that it is a question that most people ask themselves, but their answer is usually derived from the comments of the people around them.  Perhaps being a good person is something we can only judge for ourselves, although weighing up which side of the scale your friends and family’s comments leave you on can be pretty confusing, because with every quality that has been levelled at you by a friend, there appears to be an element of both good and bad.  For instance, I was recently told that I am a very assertive person, which I feel is a good trait, but does that not mean that my confidence and forceful personality stops me from taking the time to show empathy to those around me or even realise that I need to?  let’s face it, if you ask any of your friends for an assessment they will do what friends always do and paint you as much better than you really are.

Depending on the age of the inquisitor, the tense might change.  So the young will ask ‘Will I end up being a good person’ but I don’t think that it really bothered me so much when I was a reckless twenty-something-year old.  I was too busy with children, finances, family and just getting through life during my thirty, forty and fifty-something years, and now that I find myself in retirement, I am in a place where I am looking backward as much as forward quite a lot when it comes to working out just how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ a person I am and, somehow it seems to matter much more now.

I have decided that the way to take a really good look at where I am up to is to ask the question to an objective source and who is more objective than the internet?  I found a few online questionnaires and quizzes designed to provide one with an objective assessment of one’s position on the good/bad person scale.  I think that there is safety in numbers, it’s like getting an assessment, of the work and exactly how much it will cost before deciding what’s what; you need to get at least three and compare the results. 

I challenge any reader who has ever found themselves broaching this question, to take one of those objective quizzes I mentioned earlier and see if they can help you come to a consensus…

PN, Surrey

PN offers a few online quizzes that might just hold the answer to a better assessment of where you can find yourself on the good person/bad person chart…

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