I think that, for me, decent is someone who for the most part, lives by a particular positive and caring code of ethics, and who tries to remember “to do no harm”. Of course, we are far from perfect and we do struggle to maintain decency at times. I know I do.
Strive to me is the struggling, the mindful, conscious awareness of keeping ourselves in check, keeping ourselves aware of what we are doing and how that can affect others. We have a dark side, a shadow side, so it is oh so easy to slip, to fall, to lose awareness of what “decent” means. We’re lazy creatures.
I know that that wasn’t a good example of strive but you do know what the word means.
I would have you imagine “keeping on” as in the children’s book “The little engine that could” .
A little railroad engine was employed about a station yard for such work as it was built for, pulling a few cars on and off the switches. One morning it was waiting for the next call when a long train of freight-cars asked a large engine in the roundhouse to take it over the hill. “I can’t; that is too much a pull for me”, said the great engine built for hard work. Then the train asked another engine, and another, only to hear excuses and be refused. In desperation, the train asked the little switch engine to draw it up the grade and down on the other side. “I think I can”, puffed the little locomotive, and put itself in front of the great heavy train. As it went on the little engine kept bravely puffing faster and faster, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”
As it neared the top of the grade, which had so discouraged the larger engines, it went more slowly. However, it still kept saying, “I—think—I—can, I—think—I—can.” It reached the top by drawing on bravery and then went on down the grade, congratulating itself by saying, “I thought I could, I thought I could.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Littl … That_Could
Profound in its simplicity, yes?
“For the most part?” I think that what I meant in that moment was inasmuch as is humanly possible in that moment. “For the most part” also means to me a pretty good measurement which one could be satisfied with - though “ought” one to be satisfied with “for the most part?”