Being Good
Most of us are brought up to believe that, if we work hard, treat people decently, adhere to values such as honesty and fairness, then we will have a happy life. But as Roth says in The Counterlife, “It’s just heartbreaking that if you’re nice to people, if you’re reasonable, if you’re modest, they treat all over you… [I]t’s a cruel thing that all the virtues that we’ve been brought up with are nothing, absolutely nothing, in marriage, at work, everywhere.”
