Ever notice what an odd world we live in? I have. I marvel at it every day. I stand in awe of the beauty and majesty of God’s creations around me knowing full well no man or woman could look out over an unspoiled wilderness and not be touched in some way; not recognize the value of preserving it. Then, in contrast, I scratch my head in confusion knowing that same man or woman won’t buy an energy efficient light bulb because they don’t like the color light it casts.
We are creatures of conflicting duality; simultaneously noble and ignoble, caring and unkind, selfless and selfish. The same man who jumps off a bridge to save a drowning woman might, tomorrow, lie on his resume to get a job he does not deserve. We could applaud a woman’s character one morning and find ourselves wishing for her downfall for some illicit act later that same evening.
So we’re conflicted. We’re saints and scoundrels, all of us. But maybe that’s by plan. Maybe we’re in a precarious balance for a reason. Perhaps that’s just the way the universe, and everything in it, is created, existing in one state only for so long before toppling into another state of being depending on variables.
Consider every planet that is in an orbit. A little bit faster and it will spin free to fly off into the void. A little bit slower and it will plummet towards its star. That same star is responsible for the creation of all the wonders in its solar system… the same things it will someday be responsible for destroying.
Every atom in the universe sits in a state of infinite potential. It may become part of so grand a thing as a star, as mundane as the sock on your foot or as offensive as the phlegm in your throat.
Even the universe itself was born into a state of uncertain potential, doomed to expand until every rock, every molecule, every atom and every particle eventually dissipates into nothingness or, potentially, to leap out into a brief and brilliant state of existence, only to collapse again into a common singularity no bigger than a marble but containing every bit of everything in itself.
Potential. At the heart of it all is that single world. But just as important is the word “choice.” What differentiates us from the planets, from the rocks, from the universe, stars, atoms and molecules is that we are capable of thinking about potential - of making choices that can decide what aspect of our potential we will fulfill (or fail to fulfill).
Will you allow yourself to become frustrated at gridlock traffic or will you turn up the radio and sing along to your favorite song - simultaneously choosing the potential for a positive day and possibly influencing a positive day in those witnessing your carefree indifference to the delay?
Will you let your life be ruled by fear, choosing a safe but wholly uninteresting life or will you accept that you’ve got one shot in this world and might as well make the most of it?
Will you surrender or fight? Will you live on your knees or on your feet? Will you accept failure as a lesson or let it defeat you? Will you earn what you want in life or spend your life complaining about the lack of handouts? Kind or cruel, honest or dishonest, helpful or hurtful?
Potential and choice. You are the master of your life - the only mortal, living being who truly gets to decide what happens, how it goes and how you respond to those things that are beyond your control and, ultimately, the only one responsible for those choices. Whether you believe a divine being placed you in this universe or it all happened by chaotic happenstance, the end result is still the same.
This is your life. These are the circumstances. The potential is limitless. Infinite. What will you choose to do? What kind of person do you choose to be? Your potential awaits.
How do you know if something you’ve done or are planning to do is ethical? Ideally we’d all have the time to consider our actions and do the right thing every time. Of course, that’s a blindly idealistic wish. Sometimes decisions have to be made without the luxury of time to permit advance analysis. But, if we survive the decision, we have the benefit of hindsight to consider the choices we’ve made and learn from them. Faced with similar split-second decisions in the future, the template is already in place and we’re more inclined to make the “right” choice the next time around. What follows is my personal roadmap. Yours may vary and I’d be interested to know how others self-critique the choices they’ve made in life.
With another episode of The Big Give right around the bend, I thought I should take a minute to address the lesson I took away from the last one. I’ve taken to watching The Big Give with a notebook in hand, jotting down the activities of each contestant and recording my thoughts. There were plenty of touching moments and one particularly surprising incident in which Sheg goes to perform a random act of kindness and discovers the intended recipient just lost her daughter two hours before he arrived. But the most poignant moment for me came in the last minutes of the show.
I expect ethics will be a topic often touched on here so it’s probably time to introduce the term. Dictionary.com defines ethics as a system of moral principles. That begs the question, what are morals? The same source defines morals as - of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical. Missing from those definitions but mentioned in further entries is an important caveat that, to paraphrase, emphasizes the importance of placing ethics and morality in the context of cultural or personal motivation. That’s a very important point. Just because an action is ethical or morally appropriate to you or your culture doesn’t mean it would be embraced elsewhere. The cultural distinction is what I’d like to focus on in this post.
When you think of kindness, what comes to mind? Helping somebody change a tire? Donating money to a charity? Saying something encouraging to a depressed friend? Sure, all those things are kind. But what if I told you I placed a person under house arrest, denied them access to their friends and took away their most valued possessions? Would you call those acts kind or would you call them cruel? Before you answer that, let me tell a quick story.
I saw a shirt recently that proclaimed - Everything worth learning I learned from my dog. Cute though that is, my dogs lick themselves and sniff one another inappropriately so I won’t take every lesson a pooch has to teach as necessarily the best option (your mileage may vary). I will, however, agree that a great many characteristics inherent in dogs are worth emulating (loyalty, kindness, devotion, love, enthusiasm for life). There is one lesson above all the rest that stands out, though; a single character trait I’ll venture is common to every dog I’ve ever met and that is the absence of malice. I know you’re thinking of the annoying neighbor’s dog who would apparently like nothing better than to dig under the fence and chew your ankles off the next time you walk by, but hear me out.The nice thing about dogs is they don’t come with a lot of baggage. Even an adopted mutt who has led a rough life is likely, at worst, to haul a small carry-on bag full of fear. I’ve had dogs in my life since birth, have worked in veterinary medicine and, as a child, even spent time working (hanging out mostly) at a guard dog training facility in Germany as a child and what I’ve never seen in a dog is malice or hate. If there’s one thing we could stand to learn from our dogs, it’s the inability to hate. 
