“The most important part of becoming better people, I’ll say yet again, is that we care about whether what we do is good or bad, and therefore try to do the right thing. If we love a problematic person or thing too much to part with it altogether, I think that means we have to keep two ideas in our head at the same time: I love this thing. The person who made it is troubling.” – 4.25/5 stars!

From the creator of The Good Place and the cocreator of Parks and Recreation, a hilarious, thought-provoking guide to living an ethical life, drawing on 2,500 years of deep thinking from around the world.

Most people think of themselves as “good,” but it’s not always easy to determine what’s “good” or “bad”—especially in a world filled with complicated choices and pitfalls and booby traps and bad advice. Fortunately, many smart philosophers have been pondering this conundrum for millennia and they have guidance for us. With bright wit and deep insight, How to Be Perfect explains concepts like deontology, utilitarianism, existentialism, ubuntu, and more so we can sound cool at parties and become better people.

Schur starts off with easy ethical questions like “Should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?” (No.) and works his way up to the most complex moral issues we all face. Such as: Can I still enjoy great art if it was created by terrible people? How much money should I give to charity? Why bother being good at all when there are no consequences for being bad? And much more. By the time the book is done, we’ll know exactly how to act in every conceivable situation, so as to produce a verifiably maximal amount of moral good. We will be perfect, and all our friends will be jealous. OK, not quite. Instead, we’ll gain fresh, funny, inspiring wisdom on the toughest issues we face every day.

There’s something so funny about thinking of Mose from “The Office” as an aspiring philosopher. If you’re wondering why the comparison, it’s because I recently found out through Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsley’s book “The Office BFFs” that Michael Schur plays the part of Dwight’s cousin Mose! I already knew he was one of the producers or writers, but I had no idea he was part of the cast so that was very surprising!

Anyways, I digress. This book was amazing! It turns out… being a good person is quite difficult. Fortunately for us, Michael Schur did a lot of research on philosophy from 2500 years ago to today’s age, and he’s now feeding us what he learned starting from simple questions such as “should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?” to more complex issues. He proceeds by adding his own commentary, a lot of examples and funny anecdotes to make the reading experience more pleasant. In the end, we conclude that every philosophy is far from perfect and impossible to fully implement – which means that it’s impossible to be a perfect person and it’s a bad idea to even attempt it.

Also, I love how in the end he mentions he wrote this book for his children, by telling them they should embrace their failures and try to be kinder. This was a touching moment that I’m sure they will appreciate when they read this book when they’re older.

I took a lot of ideas from this book and I kind of feel like I want to reread this book in the future. I really want to watch Parks and Recreation now, and maybe give The Good Place a try too!