The realization of ethics in life.

This is an old article that I had written when I was four years younger than now and probably much less mature that now. Did not want it to go to my recycle bin; rather put it here. Check out if it sounds good to you

Ethics, when mentioned, sounds too philosophical in today’s world.  The real truth is that this statement is not the truth when you happen to understand and witness its working.  Ethics is defined as the discipline of dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.  Now, obligation is what puts one off because obligation means a responsibility that is binding.  We do not want to get bonded, isn’t it?  Let us think of making ethics as a part of our daily working activity.  Before that let us know what ethics really does to our lives.

According to me, ethics is simply applying the correct and right thing in one’s living.  It includes one’s principles towards life.  Life is a living energy that keeps transforming our lives as and how we want it to.  What we give to life, life accepts it humbly and gives the best back to us.  This means that even if we would want to give something bad, life would humbly accept it and return the best of negative things to us.  That is where ethics becomes very important.  You wouldn’t want life to be full of jealous and growling people.  You wouldn’t want disappointments on every path of your life.  You wouldn’t want people cheating you and lying to you everytime you undertake something.  Yes, same way, life also wouldn’t want you doing the same.  You are being returned what you gave out.  Its well known to you that what you want does not fall automatically at your feet but you have to work towards it.  Miracles happen when you work for it.  Same way you have to work towards making ethics a part of life.  Why the compulsion?  No, not a compulsion.  Its only if you want to see life behaving with you ethically.  Its seen clearly in us that we do not want to be ethical in our thoughts, words and deeds but are at sheer disappointment when life is not ethical with us.

What makes ethical living hard is by trying hard to be ethical when your heart is not with the decision that you make.  You have to understand and believe and thus witness the wonders in an ethical life.  The biggest trouble we have now is thinking that we have to be godly or saintly to be ethical.  No, not at all.  What I say is to bring the out the goodness that is hidden deep within your self.  You do have ethics in you but you do not display or use it.  The very thought of your conscience hinting you when you are thinking something wrong or about to do something wrong is the proof that you have ethics in you.  Whether you use it or discard the signals is entirely left up to you by life.  In some this ethical voice is very strong and it can be witnessed for a long time in the form of guilt when a wrong step or action is taken.  In some, it is momentary and forgotten.  But life doesn’t forget it and we become more foolish to forget this even when life returns it in the same manner.

Flow with life, reach for the goodness in you and exhibit the real goodness in you.  Talk to the downtrodden with a smile.  Have compassion for every living being.  Do what you feel from the bottom of your heart is the right thing.  When judging others think if would have been right if you would have been in their place.  When laughing at person’s misfortune think how would you feel if you would have been in that place, forget someone laughing at you.  When a dog barks at you understand that if you were an animal you would have barked too and maybe even bitten, if you are more of the angry type human.  When you see a snake writhing in pain by the stones pelted by men, think how would you feel when you were such a small creature crawling the earth and how horrifying when you cant cry for help and more of all you cant tell them that you didn’t mean harm and were just going your way.  When a poor dirty child at the streets stares at the ice-cream in the hands of your child don’t give that child an angry look, give it an ice-cream.  Wouldn’t you have given your child another one if it insisted?  Understand that that poor child has no privilege of eating a delicious ice-cream that your child can.  When you pick a stone to proudly display your accurate aim at that small dog lying calmly on the street, imagine yourself sleeping blissfully when a monster 10 times bigger, larger and stronger than you picks a piece of rock to test its aim at you.  While you order the butcher how you want a bird chopped and cut, the bird does not have its head it place and is tossing in pain.  Think how you tossed and jumped when you cut your finger last time.  Why all this… it goes even more smaller than you thought.  When someone is cutting a tree and you haven’t ever thought how the tree felt, think what would be happening to you if you were deaf, dumb, blind, and paralyzed and someone was cutting you with a knife.  Yes, that is how that tree feels, too unfortunate it can’t tell you.  Remember everything that moves on its own has life just like you have and it has the absolute right to live and feel good just as you do.

When someone comes to you for help that you know is genuine you think of those excuses and you can’t help cursing a few months or years down the line when you ask someone for help and don’t get it.  When you as an employer cut the hard-earned wages of your workers don’t be surprised if you don’t get to enjoy your “hard-earned” money when the Income Tax department visits you or a competitor visits your town to share your “happiness”.  When you demand a bribe from someone who has to compromise with a lot of things to feed you on your greed don’t be surprised when you have to shell out money for each and everything from “buying” the comfort of a friend to remitting those “unwarranted” hospital bills.  When you snarl and snap at your wife for every petty reason don’t be confused when your boss, your friend, your neighbors growl at you for every little reason.

This is what the simple ethics in life assures us as rewards when we do not heed to following an ethical life.  Everything matters, every little thing does.  It is not hard to bring ethics into our lives as we already have it within us.  As the world gets more materialistic and developed we suppress this ethical power within us.  Allow it to emerge and show itself.  Once your realize its working it will naturally flow and you will notice changes all around you.  You will notice that life is now more ethical to you, the way you wanted life to treat you.