Noelle McCarthy: Go on, get the life that you want

Charlotte Bronte wrote that 'unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules'. Photo / Supplied

What makes a good person? I spend a lot of time thinking about this lately.

It's a shock to realise, at the age of 31, that you don't have much of a personal morality, apart from a basic knowledge of wrong from right, a fairly flexible working definition of the latter, and a keen aversion to getting caught.

That makes me the same as many of you I suppose, worse than a few, and I've been fine with that up until now. But I have of late found myself in a place where new rules are called for and "unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules". That's a quote from Jane Eyre.

Unlike Mr Rochester, I am not using it to justify bigamy, which is just as well really, because it didn't work out so well for him. But I am looking for new rules, or rather a new way of living.

File it under the "growing up" phenomenon that I've been banging on a bit about lately. As well as hanging pictures, baking cakes and paying the power on time, I've also been thinking about what it takes to walk through the world as an adult, upright in every sense.

I'm sure many of you might be growing bored with these columns as a result, my late discovery of the concepts of integrity and responsibility may not make for the most riveting of reads. I beg patience, and remind you we all develop at different speeds.

Maybe there are some of you reading who are just like me though, who may have gotten caught up at some point in the last 10 years, in success or noise, or sparkly things and distractions and are only just now wondering what it's all about. You may be older than me, or slightly younger. You may be settled here, recently married, or back from overseas.

Maybe you've embarked on your first serious relationship, or had a baby, or just be knackered from a decade of studying and working in a bid to prove yourself to the world. You're the people I'm talking to, the generation I feel part of, the ones who are just coming out of that shiny cocoon of self-absorption, blinking at a ready-made world.

Where to start, is the question, when it comes to developing a sense of oneself?

The past is always a good place to start. Over the summer, we ran a series on Radio New Zealand called "Kiwis who should be famous".

It was all about historical and contemporary New Zealanders who we should all know more about. They ran the gamut from activists and inventors to cartoonists, soldiers and industrial designers.

There was one soldier who escaped from a German POW camp during World War II and led the Germans on a merry dance in Greece, before walking alone across the Syrian desert to, somehow, miraculously find his regiment, and his brother, in Turkey. Another young doctor from Cromwell ran off to join the Spanish Civil War and spent his time treating wounded soldiers near the front line.

There was the artist who studied at Elam before travelling to New York, where he would go on to become the man they call the father of industrial design. One of my favourites was the woman who's taught gymnastics to three generations of children in Masterton with no payment except voluntary donations, and all in her own free time. She works nights in the local Four Square to pay the bills, and the rest of her time is spent coaching.

There's the swimming teacher who started working with two kids with special needs, and ended up bringing New Zealand's first team to the Special Olympics as a result.

Or drinkers in Wellington, who started a fund raiser in the local pub that ended up becoming The Mayor of Thorndon campaign. The campaign ran from the 1940s to the 1960s, raising money for blind children, and evolved into a charitable trust which continues to this day.

We talked to, and about, all sorts of people. People who distinguished themselves by their bravery, their cleverness, their boldness, their ingenuity, or their generosity. Some have since gone on to a more widespread fame.

They've written books, or had books written about them, had academics research them, and had family members who've tried to keep their memory alive. Every single one of them is proof that one person has the power to inspire so many more along the way.

Hearing these stories every day for four weeks I was struck, over and over again, by the simple energy of people who got on with the business of having a life.

Of all the many things that series taught me, the biggest one is this - get started. Life doesn't begin tomorrow. A good person is a doing person.