At funerals, we often hear the grieving family and friends repeat the same familiar phrase: “He was a good person” or “She was a good person.”

When I think about how an entire life can be summarized by such a simple sentence, I can only conclude that being a good person means having spent a lifetime trying to do more good than harm, despite all our virtues and flaws.

To me, being a good person means waking up every day with the conviction not to harm yourself, your fellow human beings, or nature.

We may all have different ideas about morality. Some people even associate being a good person with following religious standards or principles.

But for me, it all comes down to overcoming our weaknesses and directing our strengths toward a simple purpose: causing no harm to anyone or anything.

In the end, perhaps that is why those words carry so much weight when a life is over. To be remembered as a good person is to have lived in a way that left the world a little better, or at the very least, no worse than you found it.