Watched the "9/11" special today on CBS - talk about raw. I mean, really raw. I think what got me was when I heard this loud crashing - several times, as a matter of fact, and the narrator matter-of-factly said every one of those crashes was a body - a person falling out of a building. And he said, "how horrible must it be up there that your best option is to jump?" And all through the background, even over that swollen, swelling music CBS insisted on playing throughout, you could hear the crashes.

And of course, I started to think. Because anyone who knows me in RL knows that I'm an absolute wimp. I'll do most anything for anyone, but never have I had to do anything where the possibility of death was there. And those fire fighters, they kept running up those stairs, even as the debris was falling around them and the ground was shaking. I think it would be stupid to say that they weren't afraid. Of course they were. But they kept going. There are so many people like that - who will do anything for anyone, even if they die in the process.

I wonder if I would be brave like that. Or maybe it's not bravery, but rather the conviction that you have to do good. And being good is so hard in regular times, that we often let it go, don't pay attention and whether we were good that day or not makes no difference - but in extraordinary times, we bestow the title of 'hero' on those who refuse to move until they have done good.

So my question is, why do we wait until we're tested? Why not just do it now? I don't mean run into a burning building or performing CPR on people - but I mean, be genuinely good people? Don't ask me to define good - well, I probably could in the personna of my best friend from undergrad who is probably one of the most good people I know out there - and she makes it look so easy! So considerate, so kind, so genuine, so willing to help out - and I wonder how is it so easy for her when it is so hard for me? Are people just born 'good' or is it something you have to work at? Please tell me you have to work at it because every day and if you don't have to, what is your secret?