Reading the news is like a never ending lesson in what not to do, in life. Can we continue to have faith in us humans doing the right thing at all, anymore? I know simultaneously there are good people doing good things all the time, we just never get to see that in the news!
Do you wonder what kind of world we would be living in, if bankers, politicians, lawyers, teachers, Ceo’s, doctors, nurses, newspaper editors, and each and every one of us, would all just do the right thing? Doing the right thing is not always compatible with your own self interest, therefore it is hard to put into practise and execute. This self interest is the reason why we see the level of depravity we are witnessing.
Do you want to live in utopia? Where there is harmony within yourself and in all that surrounds you and in nature too? Do you think this is an achievable goal? I think the answer lies with people who are willing to stand up for the right thing and be counted no matter the risk, to themselves and their families. There are people doing this daily, the question is are you going to be one of them?
Doing the right thing is an exercise in patience. I know from my own life that good actions take time to work and bad actions often work instantaneously. I know this sounds counter intuitive. However when you begin to practice doing the right thing, you will begin to see that being made to wait for your good actions to work through the system is often the way it plays out. Positive action always works in the long run. Negative actions never have the power to go the distance. So in doing the right things you will win in the end, and in doing the wrong things you might well win temporarily but you will lose in the final analysis.
We all, I believe deep within us want to do the right thing, but circumstances sometimes coerce us into doing that which we feel we have to do to preserve our circumstances and survive. Thinking about people in history and today, who are willing to take the heat that comes with doing the right thing is what we are all going to have to be prepared to do, if we want to strive for the ideal and not the imperfect.
Standing up for someone who is being treated unfairly or cruelly or inhumanly, is the cornerstone of compassion and what it means to be human. Our humanity is being eroded, by behaviour that is abhorrent and is being silently acquiesced to. My survival at your cost spells the eventual end for us both. As the Edmund Burke saying goes, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.
Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching you. Utopia beckons.