‘Most people are good’: How a stranger’s words became a family mantra

This story is part of the My Unsung Hero series, from the Hidden Brain team. It features stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else.

One day in March 2014, Caitlin Shetterly boarded a flight home from the West Coast to Maine. As everyone settled into their seats and prepared for takeoff, Shetterly started chatting with the man next to her.

She was newly pregnant and feeling vulnerable, and he seemed to notice she was anxious. So she shared what was on her mind: Ever since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, she told him, flying had made her nervous.

“I always get a little scared as we’re taking off that something’s going to happen,” Shetterly said. “So I said something like, ‘Do you ever get nervous?'”

The man said that he didn’t. Then he leaned over, his face full of compassion, and told her something that she still tells her children today.

“He … looked right into my eyes and said, ‘Most people are good,'” she recalled.

For Shetterly, it was like a reset button. She felt her body relax.

“This calm just washed over me, and I felt myself totally relinquish the anxiety I was feeling about flying,” she said. “It was so powerful to me.”

When Shetterly got home, she told her husband, Dan, about the stranger’s words. In the years since, the phrase has become a family touchstone — a mantra of strength in difficult times.

“We have used that line to completely reshape how we teach our sons to think about the world, and think about strangers, and think about courage,” she said.

In 2023, when a gunman killed 18 people just 30 minutes from their home in Maine, she overheard her husband in their younger son’s bedroom, trying to console him. “Most people are good,” she heard him say.

“That line, those four words, have totally transformed us and how we react to tragedy,” Shetterly said.

Today, she shares those words with people who seem overwhelmed — to remind them that there is goodness all around, even when we’re afraid.

“I’ve said it on car rides to friends’ kids. I’ve said it to other friends. I just say it as a casual thing with no, you know, Steven Spielberg kind of music overlay,” Shetterly said.

“I just hope someday that people remember me saying that, too. And I feel like I’m trying to pay it forward. And I hope it keeps going forward.”

My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.