When I cried to my boyfriend that I wanted to be a better girlfriend, he asked me why I wasn’t happy with myself.

I told him it wasn’t a matter of being happy with myself, but a matter of us all needing to better ourselves and every aspect of our lives constantly.

Part of being human means we have a conscience. The human conscience was outlined formally by John Locke in 1694. He defines person as, “a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider it self as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places,” meaning we’re self aware and look to the future with a critical lens. Locke asserts what differentiates a person from any other kind of animal is their consciousness.

Right now, as always, we’re tasked with looking to the past as a source of present day solutions for the betterment of future life on Earth: environmentally, politically, financially, globally, etc.

Being a better person means knowing when to take care of yourself and how to actively listen to others.