We are constantly faced with choices to do the right or wrong thing. Most of these small choices are so trivial that it is hard to see how they could even be considered moral choices. Should you let someone over in traffic, do you really have to pick up that receipt you dropped in the parking lot, or are you obligated to pay for something the cashier forgot to ring up? Small in the grand scheme of things and seemingly inconsequential, right?
What if I told you that these types of decisions are actually some of the most important moral decisions that you can make? What if these small behaviors make up your very moral foundation? What if these are the decisions that, in fact, drive real change in the world?
The truth is, most people are not good at thinking in terms of second or third-order consequences when it comes to their actions. The Butterfly Effect was a cool movie and all, but you didn’t get it. Who has the time anyway? Our lives become more focused on short-term comfort every day, and we are accustomed to most things just working out.
Not letting someone over in traffic seems benign. After all, you have places to be. Ignore the fact that if someone can’t get over, they have to drive slower or make more drastic maneuvers, causing traffic to slow for everyone, you have places to be, and don’t want to look at their bumper sticker. Some piece of trash falls from your pocket to the ground, no one saw it, and you’ll never see that again anyway. Besides, someone is paid to clean this place up. Cashier forgot to ring up that candy bar? You shop here all the time, that cashier probably won’t get in trouble for it, and if they do, they should have done a better job. There are always little reasons you can tell yourself to absolve yourself from the responsibility and guilt of doing those little things, even if you know it is objectively the wrong thing to do. The real question to ask yourself, and really think about it, is”
What if everyone simultaneously did the exact same thing? Would that be better or worse for everyone?
Better or worse? Not neutral, because it isn’t. No excuses, because everyone has a different one. No comparing your actions to what everyone else is doing. Action and reaction, is it better or worse for the rest of the world? If Newton’s third law of motion is correct and “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” what reaction did you just trigger, and how would that play out at scale?
These little things may go completely unnoticed if you choose to act only in your self-interest. You will walk away from it and never hear any feedback. You will quickly forget about it, and the worst that would happen if someone saw it is that you may get a sigh of disappointment. If you choose to do the right thing and let that person over or pick up that trash, no one will praise you for it. Why? Because we don’t get praised for doing what we are expected to do, the right thing. In which lies the issue?
We can’t expect people to simply do the right thing. It isn’t a value. People want praise… constantly. People want everything to get a like. People want instant and public feedback. If an action doesn’t generate that kind of reaction, then it is not seen to have a high level of value.
Integrity is what you do when no one is looking.
I have heard this saying many times, from many different sources in my life. Sometimes in the same vein as “God is always watching,” as if there was someone else keeping score.
The fact is that many of the things we complain the most about in society are a failure of this principle. We praise those who get rich quick and accept that they will screw some people over in the process. We perpetuate a “that’s not my problem” mentality to help ourselves and those around us, “focus on ourselves.” We act as if life is a game and we are the only real players. Everyone else is an NPC, or worse, a lower-level being.
This type of thinking can justify all types of bad behavior at every level of society. We are seeing that daily. It is clear that “MY success at all costs” is the mantra of this decade, and the reactions are in motion. The path to our fate seems paved.
The hope that lingers and the revolution that could rise is simply one of a return to integrity. A return to where doing the right thing can be expected, or even enforced. A return of humanity, dignity, and community, because we have a deficit of those things in action today. If enough of this humanity can re-enter public life, we just may stand a chance of steering our ship to a better place. If not, we will continue on, towards a turbulent and dangerous future.
It starts with one.