EVERY DAY IS FILLED with more stories of continued hatred and violence toward each other begging the question of Where Are Your Morals & Ethics?
Each new story of worldwide violence can be linked to one indisputable fact: people who hate others don’t care, are unaccountable, irresponsible, and apparently have not constructed any type of moral compass that would stop them in their tracks before they commit vicious and heinous crimes.
Are you wondering as I am whether the human race is rapidly deteriorating onto a slippery path that is irreversible and uncontrollable?
Why are we not as neighbors, parents, teachers, counselors, and leaders consistently teaching the value of morals and ethics to our young people? There can be no place for bullying, intimidation, racism, violence, and continued discrimination that slowly germinates into hatred toward one another.
How can we rise above this ugliness where morals and ethics are missing and transform lives for the better? Here are a couple of suggestions that we can all deploy on a daily basis that will help:
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Look others in the eyes and don’t walk with your heads down. All too often I see people on their phones talking, texting, or listening to music with earphones plugged in. It is too much; we are tuning each other out, and not in engagement mode.
Actively smile and greet others you don’t know. Friends and colleagues of mine often hear me say “I woke up happy and am still happy.” This type of attitude and approach can be contagious as long as we are genuine.
Reflect and consult your moral compass daily. Think about your morals, ethics, and what you value. Ask yourself if you can do or say something that will make another person’s life better.
Have a sense of humor and quit living life like every burden you possess is visible on your sleeves. Everyone has problems and issues in their lives. We are too stiff and need to loosen up to enjoy the journeys we are on.
Take the lead and be a role model. Show others how simple it is to address others you don’t know. I watch volunteer greeters each week in my church do this with ease, grace, and smiles. They make me feel good.
Complaining and whining needs to be removed from our daily lives as much as possible. Unfortunately, this is difficult for most humans who want to convey to others they don’t know real well the extent of their problems.[/message]
[bctt tweet=”The human race has the capacity and the ability to do much better than the current events that are taking place. ” via=”no”]
911 operators are on overload and high alert.
Our moral compasses encompassing morals, values, and ethics is the ultimate and most effective vaccine I know to help quarantine and eliminate the dark side of the human soul. Let us all commit to making the planet a better place by doing good deeds and looking out for each other.
We must take action and step up to the plate right now. We cannot permit evil to take hold and grow like a virus.
[bctt tweet=”What we can do is actively deploy our morals, values, and ethics every day.” via=”no”]
Be well, be safe, and always do your best each day.
Best/blessings, Mark
Great thoughts, Mark. This is such a complex subject in a very broken society, both operationally and involving individual lives. However, the positive attitude and perspective of individual people can make a difference in the moments in time. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Thank you for your thoughts Devaney. The path to reform is a long one but worth fighting for each day. We can all make a positive difference in other lives and these contributions can be simple and thoughtful in nature. Be well and keep doing your fine work!!
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Mark and Dennis, Lynn, Ken, and Len: My heart aches, as does yours, with every day that introduces another atrocious display of deteriorating morals and ethics. I read the article and all the comments here. I know we can’t solve the issues of society alone. We can’t even solve them collectively, but as Ken says – we’ve all given up and that doesn’t help anything either. I’m glad you still wake up happy, Mark. I admire that. You know what? I don’t wake up happy but I am able to offload the burden of the day through lots of prayer and keep slogging through. I believe we have to look for the good things and seek joy because it won’t come find us. The world is growing darker and it’s because fewer people believe in the light that comes from Biblical principles. The more we write God out of the picture, the more territory we turn over to the schemes of the devil. I realize many people will read this comment and toss it out as nonsense because they don’t believe in God or that he breathed his truth into scripture which we call the Bible. I’m not going to debate beliefs with anyone. I would like to point everyone to the fact that as we erase God from policy, courtrooms, laws, regulations, values, objectives and principles of our society, the more we see crime, intolerance, cruelty, bullying, injustice, inequality, violence, drug abuse, human trafficking, and every dark and dangerous moral and ethical violation. There is light and there is dark. They are the polarization of each other and will always be in opposition to each other.
Jane,
Thank you for taking time today from your schedule and thoughtfully commenting.
I want you to know that faith in God is the core component of my moral compass; I have daily struggles like you and have learned to do my best each day being cheerful and purposeful.
Nothing is easy about our journeys and I personally have never expected them to be that way. I am heartened and stronger to know there are people like you who do care, that do their part, and pay it forward.
We can never ever give up and throw the surrender flag up. We keep slogging, we keep trying, we continue to teach others to do the right things, and we must be accountable and responsible for our own conduct.
As my late father said to me, “keep your head up and chin down.” Our time is now and we cannot afford to kick the can down the road any longer. Stay strong and be well.
Best/blessings, Mark
Mark, I read your bio and your article with the sense that you have strong faith in God. Every day in my quiet time, I find a verse or a few that speak to me and write them on index cards. I thought of 2 Corinthians 4:4 when I read your article. And also Proverb 4:11 and 23. Psalm 40:1-4 is a good place to be when life just doesn’t make sense. My faith is everything to me. I don’t know how to articulate my thoughts as well as you do. Thank you for writing about this subject that’s so important to recognize and act on.
Mark, first, great article. Second, when the people you refer to in your article, those mass of people who have lacked and deteriorated in the Ethics and Moral calculator have (in my opinion) stopped reading the Bible. I have no doubt that in your own personal confinement that the Bible was one of the many books available. I am about to put out a post that pretty much encompasses your thoughts as given by a well known name who makes this obvious. It is my belief that without being a Bible thumper that this book gives all the guidelines that if followed by parents, children, professionals, everyday kind of hearts, that the points you emphasied would be no need, only reminders.
Lynn,
Please follow through with your post. Our Group can feed off of the inspiration you pen.
My best male friend commented to me recently how dysfunctional humans have become. While not pointing a finger at me or anyone around us in a public restaurant, I took his thoughtful observation to mean that we all have or have experienced some dysfunction in our lives. This can mostly be contained by having strong moral compasses turned on that quarantine and eradicate the “I don’t care” attitude Ken accurately referred to.
My friend has never displayed much faith or spirituality toward God. No matter, he did say that if more people adopted the principles of Christ: respect, consideration, courtesy toward others…. being fair, decent, and equal that human civilization would take a giant leap forward. That’s why he’s one of my wingmen.
Best/blessings, Mark
Mark: I think the lack of a moral compass and an ethical standard is the symptom, not the problem. Those are results of the core problem. I believe the core problem is that people simply don’t care anymore. They don’t care that our elected and appointed government officials are on the take. They don’t care that we have more military guarding the boarder between N. and S. Korea than guard our own boarders. They don’t care that cops are being assassinated or that we are still having our men and women killed in countries that we shouldn’t be in. They don’t care that our education system in in the toilet or that our federal deficit is beyond the ability to pay it and crowing by $33,000 per minute.
In short we have just given up, so there is no reason to have morals or ethics or anything other than more possessions.
Of course your suggestions would help, if we could get people to do them. When checking out at the grocery last week I said, “Thank you Shirley” to the lady checker. I thought the poor woman would faint. Obviously saying thanks and using someones name isn’t done much any more. Maybe that isn’t politically correct these days.
Ken,
Some have given up and forgotten how lucky they are. What hardships and can despair can they point to in their lives that is truly monumental and crushing?
When people don’t have clothing, food, shelter, electricity, or clean water– the bare essentials in life…I would declare that to be grave danger. I’ve seen that in Ethiopia, yet smiles somehow appear out of no where. An open and willing hand backed up by a smile is timeless and priceless.
I’m not giving up and neither are you. Please continue your genuine and kind ways. More women named Shirley need to meet you. Make no mistake about it, gratitude and thankfulness travel forever.
Best regards, Mark
Mark – Good article. Somewhere along the way, “experts” convinced parents that they could only be good parents if they defended their children from everything. So, when a child does poor in school, you must go yell at the teacher in front of the child. When an umpires yells “Out!”, you must run on the field and argue in front of your child. No matter what your child does, excuse them, blame someone else, and yell at the person you blame in front of your child. The effect is children began to see themselves as “special” and above the rules of “normal people”. This lead to a focus on self and a feeling of entitlement where the world must exist to make “me” happy – ask mom – ask dad. Thus, instead of teaching morals and ethics, parents have taught children that self-gratification is all that matters and no matter how you achieve it, that’s okay because “you” are special. And with that, we now have articles like yours where we wonder, what went wrong.
Until we reverse the damage caused by the “don’t tell your children they are wrong because it will scar them for life” experts, we will not see a return to the values that made this country great. And that, Mark, is the scariest part of story.
Thanks for starting the conversation.
Len,
Thank you for weighing in and providing some quality perspective as parents. Self-gratification, entitlement, and lack of manners is truly a poisonous combination for
any child to adopt.
How can we blame them when this was learned from their parents? I have two teenage boys 20 & 17 years of age. While far from perfect, they understand a few simple concepts delivered by the King and Queen: you will respect us, we are right more than you, be accountable & responsible for your conduct, and be truthful when you make mistakes.
I can only hope that they absorb this, deploy it in their lives, and make our planet better. Otherwise, we have failed them. Thank you for your support and thoughts.
Best regards, Mark