John Profumo screwed up. He had an affair with what turned out to be a spy. He lied about it. As a result, the prime minister lost his job. The country was embarrassed. He was canceled, driven into political exile from which he was never able to return.

Did he deserve it all? Maybe. Probably.

But what’s interesting is what happened after. Because instead of licking his wounds, instead of being angry, instead of nursing many grievances, what John Profumo did instead was go to work at Toynbee Hall, a poverty-fighting charity in England. For the next forty years he was the charity’s single longest-serving volunteer, working his way up from manual labor to its chief fundraiser, almost entirely without recognition or fanfare.

This is a story told in Right Thing Right Now (a book about the Stoic virtue of justice, which you can preorder…right now) because it’s so rare. Here is someone engulfed in scandal and shame, largely of his own making, who instead of being made worse by it, instead of trying to settle scores or prove people wrong, he decided to become better for it. Someone who quietly, diligently, decided not to be defined by what happened to him—at least to himself anyway. He did try to prove people wrong, but only in the sense that he sought to prove that he was not who he was at his worst moment.

Marcus Aurelius talks in Meditations about how events can only harm you if they harm your character. He talks about how the best revenge is to not be like that. It is so easy in the middle of a scandal or after a huge mistake, to double down. To make it all about you. To become bitter and angry about the unfairness of it all. Profumo didn’t do that. Instead, he made something positive out of it. He showed his true character. He got revenge not on his political enemies but on the old version of himself.

That’s why seeing justice as a way of being, as how you treat others, is so important. It’s why Marcus Aurelius called it “the source of all other virtues.” Because how can we become better versions of ourselves, how can we reach the heights of our potential, if we can’t admit our past blunders, if we can’t make amends with others, if we can’t own the unpleasant responsibility of who we’ve been?

Justice, as the Stoics understood, is the foundation to true self-improvement.