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This article contains spoilers for all four seasons of The Good Place.Across four seasons, The Good Place made us laugh, cry, and ponder the very nature of our existence. This NBC comedy asks what it means to be a good person in this world and gives a variety of answers over the course of its run. With individualism rising, especially in the United States, now is as good a time as any to look back on The Good Place and what it had to teach us about what we owe to each other as people sharing life on a spinning rock in the cosmos.With Love and Support, Most People Will Choose to Do GoodOne of The Good Places most profound observations lies in a quote from Michael (Ted Danson). He says People improve when they get external love and support. How can we hold it against them when they dont?Over the course of his Bad Place experiments, Michael learns that no matter what he throws at Chidi (William Jackson Harper), Tahani (Jameela Jamil), Eleanor (Kristen Bell), and Jason (Manny Jacinto), that they always seem to find each other and learn how to be better people because of each other. Despite everything they went through before their deaths that led them to The Bad Place, they finally find the support they need to become better people in the afterlife.Its why Michael interferes when the four get sent back to Earth for a second chance to prove themselves in life. He knows that without support, theyll eventually end up right where they started. This lesson isnt about excusing a persons abhorrent behavior because they didnt grow up with enough care to make them good, its about encouraging those of us who did to put that same love and care we received back out into the world as much as we can. You never know when an act of kindness could change someones life and set them on a better path.Another quote from Michael that holds a really valuable lesson is from the episode A Chip Driver Mystery. He says What matters isnt if people are good or bad. What matters is if theyre trying to be better today than they were yesterday.As Eleanor so eloquently says early on in the series Pobodys Nerfect. We cant expect every person to be a bastion of moral superiority at all times. Its just not feasible, especially in the world we live in where every choice we make often has unintended consequences. But rather than giving up and resigning to the fact that being a good person isnt always easy, we can at least try to be a better person that we were yesterday. Being a better person isnt about making one grand gesture and hoping it erases all of the bad youve done, its about taking smaller steps every day until being good becomes second nature.As people, we tend to get discouraged when we arent automatically good at something. Oftentimes failure is even considered to be a moral negative that reflects badly on someones character. Sometimes this encourages people to always try their best, but more often than not it discourages someone from even trying in the first place. If someone is trying to be a better person, but is struggling with it, we shouldnt belittle them for their efforts. Once again, a quote from Michael perfectly exemplifies this. He says You fail, and then you try something else, and you fail again and again. And you fail a thousand times, and you keep trying. Because maybe the 1,001st idea might work.Just as failure isnt inherently bad, perfection isnt inherently good, as we see with Chidi. He spends his entire life studying philosophy and agonizing over being a good person and making the best choices, but its his fear of failing at that and his fear of making the wrong choice that ultimately lead to him ending up in the bad place. Instead of learning through experience and failure, he stays paralyzed in indecision. We never know for sure if were good at something or if its the right choice until we try.Dont Fight Your Own Sadness at the State of the World, Itll Just End Up Leaking Out of You AnywayWhen Michael is having his existential crisis in season 2, Eleanor tells him All humans are aware of death. So were all a little bit sad all the time. Thats just the dealbut we dont get offered any other ones. And if you try and ignore your sadness, it just ends up leaking out of you anyway. Ive been there. And everybodys been there. So dont fight it.This is a lesson that I think we can all learn from. In times like these, its easy to feel like you have to fight against your sadness at the state of the world. As though theres too much heaviness to process at once. But as Eleanor says, ignoring your sadness is just postponing it. Your body and mind will find other ways to deal with it if you dont.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!Being sad isnt a sign of weakness it means you care enough about something to elicit an emotional response. Its important to not only hold space for our own sadness, but to help others feel more comfortable in theirs. When things feel heavy its hard to know the right way to react, but its always better to acknowledge what youre feeling than to pretend you dont feel anything at all.
