Affording to be Moral
by Joseph Rowlands
A friend of mine recently worked at a small company. The company started losing money and was on the brink of collapse. But before it went under, there was time to see the management turn nasty. They began to make promises they couldn't keep, rack up debt they couldn't pay, lie to their staff and even steal from their employees. When the true nature of these men became apparent, all employees should have left the company immediately. To stay would be to both financially and morally support these frauds.
Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy. This behavior was sudden and unexpected, and many of the employees had little or no money saved up. Due to pressing financial needs, they had to stomach their moral sentiments and continue working for the devil.
The problem here was a lack of money. When you don't have money, you may find yourself in a situation that leaves no good choice to make. You may know what you should do, and what is the right thing to do, but it's meaningless if you're not able to afford it. If you're left with doing the wrong thing on one hand, and starving on the other, you don't have much of a choice.
And morality is all about choices. Ethics provides the means of identifying values in your life, and selecting among them. The more possibilities you have, the more likely you'll be able to choose something that better furthers your life. If you develop a wide set of work skills, you can find a number of jobs and choose among them. You can then select one that provides a good salary, learning opportunities, good people to work with, great location, etc. If you had a small set of skills, you may find yourself with very limited opportunities. Even the best of the opportunities may be unpleasant.
A proper system of ethics doesn't just mean selecting the best choice at the time. It should also increase the quantity and quality of your choices in the future. It should allow you to avoid rough situations where you're only left with unpleasant alternatives.
How do you increase your choices? The most obvious choice is to increase your supply of money. Due to the nature of the free-market, money can provide you with goods and services you could never hope to achieve on your own. And the wide range of available uses can't help but increase your available options.
There are other ways of course. Gaining knowledge, acquiring skills, making contacts. By understanding the kinds of things that can limit your choices, you can work to overcome these limits. For instance, you may find that having a number of friends that you do stuff with allows you more opportunities to try things. If one doesn't like seeing violent movies, you can go with another. If one fears heights, you can skydive with another.
Removing limitations is only one way to increase opportunities. By developing new skill sets, or succeeding in past achievements, you can move on to new and better ones. Graduating from college can open up job opportunities in all kinds of areas that would otherwise not be available. But it can also lead to more specialized studies, or teaching, or research. Life builds upon itself. As you succeed in life, the possibilities expand around you.
Ultimately, you just need to recognize that your life should be a process of expanding your horizons. Choose your goals to open new doors and provide flexibility in your life. You have to remember that it's not just about making the right choices, but about having those choices to begin with. Sometimes opportunity knocks, and you have to be prepared to take advantage of it. Sometimes things don't go according to plan, and you need options to make the best out of a situation. If you want to have good choices to make, you have to create them yourself.
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