 And we're going to try to apply it and break it down and maybe do some exercises on how to cultivate it and how to make it part of your life because it is a crucial virtue. Of course, all the rules for life at the Iran Book Show are centered around the idea that your life is important to you. They're centered around the idea of you should be selfish, selfish in the sense of rationally long term, and you should always pursue your self-interest, your values, your well-being that life is too short, not to do so, and that any second wasted is wasted. You can't get it back, you can't get it back. So the whole idea of the universal life is guidance on how to live the fullest, how to live the most impactful, meaningful, and ultimately happiest life you possibly can. Now, because one of the greatest sources of joy, of happiness is our relationships with other people, close relationship, father relationship, just the fact that we live in a social context provides us with immense opportunities to be productive, to engage in productive activity, to trade, to consume amazing things that we could never consume if we did not live in a social environment, but of course the fact that you live in a social environment means that you interact with other people. And the question is, of course, what should guide that interaction? What should be the principles by which one should engage in interaction, in these interactions with other people? Other people can be a great source of joy, a great source of pleasure, a great source of stimulation, but they can also be a great source of pain in the neck, they can also be a great source of angst, anguish, frustration, and even a source of real harm. And part of life, part of the important aspect of life is to navigate all that, important aspect of life, of a successful life, of a happy life, of a fulfilling life, is to navigate one's relationships with other people. It's to figure out which relationships are worthwhile and which relationship one should invest in, one should dedicate oneself to improving and to, you know, spending more time because they are positive, and which ones, which relationships should be ended, should be stopped because they are harmful, because they're destructive, because they do pain and damage to one's joy and happiness. And the standard by which one determines these things is the concept of justice. The idea of treating people the way they deserve, treating people in the way that their actions and the way that their behavior and the way that their moral character deserves. In the context of your own life, in the context of your own pursuit of your own life and your own happiness. So good people, good people should be rewarded, that is the just thing. Good people should be supported. Good people should be acknowledged for the goodness. And bad people should be punished, this is the idea of justice, rewarding the good punishing evil. And in the context of your own life, what's important here is to identify the people who are positive, have a positive impact on your life and identify people who have a negative impact on your life and act accordingly, act accordingly. And of course, all this demands that one understand why somebody is having a positive impact on your life, why somebody is having a negative impact on life. I mean, this is not, you know, not supposed to be some kind of emotionalistic thing, it's okay, I really don't like Joe. Why don't I like him? Because he lies. Well, then it's easy. He's in all, he's somebody to distance oneself from, he's somebody that can only do your life harm and damage. And it's something that you want to avoid. Joey's fun, Joey's fun, when you hang around him, fun, it's exciting, but is it good? Is it good? Is there a relationship with him? Something that is just a flash in the pan, fun, but ultimately could leave to destructive behavior? Or is it really good in a sense that it's fun and you could build on it and something, something will actually will lead to you being more successful, to you having a better life. Yeah. Jose, you should put that in a, you should put that in a super chat and I will definitely do that. So evaluate the people around you, but evaluate them rationally. Evaluate them based on the facts, evaluate them based on the standard of your own life and the value or this value that they create for you. So one of the most important thing in cultivating the virtue of justice in the context of your own life and your own pursuit of happiness is to really spend some time and maybe do this fairly regularly in evaluating the relationships that you have with people. Make a list of your friends and acquaintances, family members you have relationships with, or you relate to at work, at home, family, friends, everything and then think about them. Evaluate them to what extent, to what extent does this person, any particular person benefit your life? To what extent are they furthering, helping you further your values? What is their moral character? Are they good or are they not? And it's hard to do because sometimes this will involve people that you have a long-term relationship with, this will involve people that you grew up with, family members, this will involve people that you might be childhood friends with, this might involve your coworkers, your boss, the people who report to you, but you've got to have a clear understanding of who they are, what they are, what their relationship is to you and whether they're good for you or bad for you, whether they're a value or a disvalue. Because that should and will determine your behavior towards them. You want to cultivate positive, healthy, good relationships. You want to have a list of people that you really want to have good relationships with because they're a value to you. And also, if you evaluate people as good, part of justice is tell them, appreciate them, pat them on the shoulder. In that sense, your list could include people who, on the plus side certainly, who you don't have a personal relationship with, but who have impacted your life. People you admire, people you respect, people you look up to. And in those cases, tell them so, send them an email, send them a text, say, really appreciate what you've done to my life, you're a good guy, you're one of the good guys. I've learned so much, whatever, it happens to me. The value of supporting the good is immense in when it comes to justice. This is what's important with the God to justice. What's really important with the God to justice is the support of the good. And that's true of people within your world, people you have personal relationships. Do you tell your friends often enough that you really value them? Do you tell family members who you love or who are really values to you that you love them and that they're a value to you? Do you show your appreciation, do you express it? That's the act of justice, expressing it and enacting based on that. So I want to emphasize that when we talk about justice so often because we think of the justice system, punishing crooks, the focus is almost always on the negative. And I talked about this when I talked about the virtue of justice in the series I did about the virtues. But the real act of justice, the act of justice that most supports your life, that most supports life in general and ability to grow and flourish and be happy, is supporting the good, is appreciating the good. And that means more of that good in your life. But it also means the good is bolstered, the good is helped and to the extent that the good is something that promotes your life in one way or another, just bolstering them in any kind of way will ultimately help you. And we all need good people in the world around us. We all need the success of good people around us. We again, in the news and in our day to day living, we so easily focus on the negative. We so easily focus on the bad guys. We so easily focus on what we hate, what we dislike, what we want changed. All the people who have done bad things to us or bad things to the world or, you know, in the news is like this. The news is almost all exclusively focused on all the bad things happen in the world, all the evil people out there, all the disgusting stuff that's going on. But there's a bunch of good stuff that's happening. There's a bunch of good people out there. There's a lot that supports our life. There's a lot of positive news. Nobody reports it. But one of the reasons nobody reports it is because we as consumers are not interested in it. We're much more interested in the negative, the bad. So much of our world is focused on evil. So identify the good in the world out there, identify the heroes in the world out there. Identify, and again, it's going to be hard to find perfection. But if you see a businessman doing a good job, say something. If you have a waitress who does a particularly good job, leave a bigger tip. Say thank you. Wherever you see goodness in the world, stop and appreciate it and give it some feedback. We're so good at bitching and complaining. So I think that's my main thrust in cultivating the virtue of justice is focus on the good people in your life, invest in them, focus on the good in the world, invest in it, invest your time, invest your energy, invest what you say in the good in the world around you. And again, it's the one thing that we're not very good at doing. The flip side of that is that you want to distance yourself from people and do your home. And this can be hard. It could be family members who lie to you, who leech off of you, parasitic, who are just, it could be friends who want to get you in trouble constantly, who provide no real value to your life. You got to stop, you got to stop any destructive behavior to your life. You've got to cut off those relationships. It's hard. But make a list of a people and again rank them, give them a grade, how destructive, how helpful are they and to the extent that they are destructive, to the extent that the destructive part of them is more part of your relationship with them than a good and to the extent that that is their fault, not yours, because sometimes it's going to be your fault. You've got to get a, you've got to walk away from those relationships. Life is too precious. Time is too valuable. You've got to invest in the good and disinvest from that. Now, and this is hard. It's been hard for me. It's, it's hard for anybody. First of all, to recognize that somebody is doing you harm and then have the courage to walk away, have the courage to walk away and in some cases have the courage to fight them. If they're really becoming a part of your relationship with them, if they're and in some cases have the courage to fight them. If they're really becoming your enemies, you know, some people are your enemies. It's, it's good to have a list of enemies. Isn't there saying that some way that says that if you don't have enemies, you haven't really lived or you haven't really stood for your values or something like that. Well, I take pride in the fact that I have enemies. I have people who really dislike me. People who would like to destroy me. It's good. It means I've done something, but it's really, really important to identify those people and either get away from them or if you can't fight them and if they need to be fought, fight them. But it's good to make all that conscious and it's good to make all that rational. Are they your enemies for rational reason from your perspective rational? That is, are they truly hurting you? Are they truly after you or are you just being paranoid? Is the person really hurting you? Is the person really doing damage to you? Or is, is it just your emotionalism that's driving you towards that conclusion? But we all have friends that are not good for us, at least in certain periods in our lives. We've all had family members that just make you miserable, right? Make you miserable. So, I mean, the big thing about this is figure out who's who. And don't just do it once. It's an ongoing challenge. Figure out who's who. Figure out who your real friends are. Figure out who's bad for you. And act on it. Act on it. Act on it. Don't just accept it. And it can get tricky. And, you know, again, if you want to ask questions about particular specifics, anything related to this, feel free to do so in the super chat. One of the issues I want to cover when it comes to this issue of justice. And that is justice towards oneself, I think, Jose, somebody who raised that up in the chat. You've got to make the same evaluation of yourself. Indeed, it's hard to evaluate other people without having an objective view of you, of yourself. Are you good? Are you good to yourself? To what extent are you acting based on your virtues? To what extent are you rational? To what extent are you living a good life? And if you're not, why? And sometimes you might beat yourself up for not being good. And it's important not to beat yourself up, but rather to figure out what's going on. Why am I doing these irrational things? Or why am I acting in this wrong way? How do I improve myself? How do I become the best version of myself possible? How do I live the best life that I can live for myself? So use whatever negative estimation you have not to beat yourself up. There's no value in that. You're too precious to you. There's no alternative but you. You can walk away from people who do bad things to you. You can't walk away from yourself. If you do bad things to yourself, your job is to fix it. Not beat yourself up, but figure out how to do it better. How not to make the same mistake. How to get on the right track. And again, I think Lance Virtues are the best way to evaluate that. Because having a good psychologist often is good. So figure out, you know, pat yourself in the back for the good things that you do. But be objective about them. Be objective about the bad things. But don't just evaluate them. Hmm, that's bad. Okay. But then have a plan. How do I stop doing that? How do I do it differently? How do I fix it? So, you know, there's a law we can talk about in terms of forgiveness to other people, which is also an issue of justice. When should one forgive? How one should forgive? But think about forgiving yourself. And just like forgiving somebody else, you forgive somebody else. I mean, certain things are unforgivable, but you forgive somebody else, and certain things you do to yourself are unforgivable. You know, we can talk about that. But you forgive somebody else when they show regret. But that's not enough. They have to do something, some kind of recompense. They have to show, thank you, Jamie, they have to show that they understood what they did is wrong, and they're acting to fix it. And you, if you're trying to forgive yourself, if you're judging yourself, you have to first recognize what you did is wrong, what you did is wrong, in what way was it wrong. And then you have to commit yourself to fixing it. You have to commit yourself to the actions necessary so you will never do it again. And it's not just the negative you will never do it again, but you will do good. You will do right. And good and right by whom? By you. You are the standard. One of the few men says, which song support the steam? I don't know. I'm not good at retrieving that kind of material. Maybe you guys have ideas on which songs are consistent with the steam of justice. Oh, you're my best friend from Queen. I've been with you such a long time. You're the only one. Yeah, but I don't know that there's any content to the lyrics other than, you're my best friend. Is there any content that suggests justice? Yeah, not sure. So be just to yourself. Evaluate yourself objectively. And again, the way to evaluate other people is objectively. So forgiveness. People can do bad stuff. And if they are valued to you, forgiveness is an option. But forgiveness actually requires you, requires them or if you're the one asking forgiveness requires you to again recognize what you did wrong and try to compensate for whatever damage you did and particularly why it will never be done again. Act in a way as to give a T that it'll never be done again. Some acts unforgivable. I don't know. I don't understand it when I don't know. You hear about this brutal murder. I don't know. Somebody murders your kids and then the parent says, oh, I forgive the murderer. How can they forgive them? How is that even possible? How is it possible? Somebody takes away one of your greatest values that you say, oh, I forgive them. I mean, that if that's not altruism, I don't know what is. It's evil to forgive evil like that. It's self destructive. And in this sense, hatred is an act of justice. And hatred is an act of psychological health. Some people deserve hatred. Wow. We've got a bunch of interesting song here. Show the people. Show the people you love. That's good. I like that. That's James Taylor, right? James Taylor. Yeah. All right. I used to listen to James Taylor. You're my sunshine. You're my best friend. You are the wind beneath my wings. Debbie Boone. Isn't there, what's that from beaches? There's a beach as you are. Maybe it's one of these songs. Just the way you are, Billy Joel. But yeah, but is that what we want? Is just the way you are? I mean, it seems to, like, forgiveness is a form of charity. I don't even know what that means. Forgiving evil is betraying the good, absolutely. It betrays, it's betraying yourself and it's betraying every good person you know. You cannot forgive evil. Certain acts can be forgiven under certain circumstances. But pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over. That's a song. Beaches, the wind beneath my wings. There you go. Thank you. Thank you, wind beneath the wings. That's two sisters, I think, right? But it's a value. Nobody does it better by calling Simon. There you go. Good ones. You're the cherry on my Sunday. I don't know what that is. All right, so justice. It deserves your attention. It deserves your focus. We interact with people all the time. We get values from people all the time. Many people provide us with disvalues, unfortunately, all the time. We got to evaluate, we got to judge. Judge them, be prepared to be judged yourself. But judge them, judge yourself. Objectively, rationally. Promote the good, support the good, thank the good, appreciate the good. Tell the good that they're appreciated. Tell the people you love, you love them. You can't do it often enough. Can't do it often enough. Tell the people you admire that you admire them. And just get away from the people who are destructive in your life. Who are not good for you. What was this, something here? I saw before. Yeah, Scott mentioned gratitude. Yeah, express gratitude. Say thank you, often, to the people who add value to your life. Gratitude is a form of justice. Gratitude is really, really important in life. It again is an expression of your values. It supports the good. And it gives you the sense that you've paid for the good. Again, we talk about trade, win-win. Part of that trade is you expressing gratitude. You got something? Thank you. I really appreciated what you do, done, given me, and so on. Cultivate that. Practice it. Make it part of who you are. Again, in the context of making you the best person you can be. Love. Love is an act of justice. Love is an act of justice to yourself and to the person you love. But love, don't give up on love. Find love, romantic love, and other forms of love. But particular romantic love, if you find somebody you truly love, God, that is so amazing. That is so beautiful and wonderful. Then fight for it. Invest in it. Dedicate yourself to it. Express it. Show gratitude for it. People give up on relationships, give up on love so often. Can hate be justice? Absolutely. There are people who deserve your hatred. And the hatred is there. The emotion of hate, the evaluation that justifies the hate is a self-defense mechanism. Somebody you hate is somebody who's done and can do you great harm. The hatred is there to prevent you from engaging with them, to prevent you from getting yourself in a situation where they do you great harm. It's a self-defense mechanism. Again, justice is selfish. Justice is there to help you live a better life. Now again, it has to be rational. It has to be objective. But yeah, we live in a society that believes that, oh, hatred is a waste of time. You shouldn't hate people. You should forgive them again. I'm against forgiveness unless it's earned. I'm for hatred when it's earned. Oh, now we're going on love songs. There are a lot of good love songs. Yeah, one of my, yeah, a lot of good love songs. All right, let's see. So yeah, we're super chat. Particularly if you have any questions on justice, any comments on justice, any things you would like me to talk about with regard to justice. Now is the time before I get to other super chat questions, because I see there's a bunch of super chat questions unrelated to this issue. You know, one of the reasons I get angry at people in a chat, one of the reasons I get angry in debates, it's because it angers me to see irrationality. It's unjust to stay quiet in the face of irrationality, in the face of, you know, horrible, evil ideas. I can't do it. I can't do it. If I see any justice, if I see something wrong, if I see people committing bad acts, you can't just stay silent. You've got to act on it. And the same with the good. If you see something good, you've got to act on it. You've got to do something. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to www.uranbrookshow.com by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making an appropriate contribution on any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see the Iran Book Show grow, please consider sharing our content and of course, subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for those of you who are already subscribers of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.