Accepting Responsibility and Making Ethical Decisions

Submitted by Don Doman.

In the feature film, True Grit, Mattie Ross searches for Tom Chaney. Chaney is wanted in Texas for killing a senator, but she is after him for stealing her father’s money and killing him. She hires Marshal Rooster Cogburn to help her track him down. When she meets up with Chaney. She pulls out an ancient horse pistol, but he ignores the weapon thinking she won’t use it. She fires and wounds him. Lying on the ground he complains, “Why does everything happen to me?” Does this behavior sound familiar?

The world is filled with people who create trouble for everyone around them, but all they see is the problems that affect them. Take for example, the person who uses a pair of pliers or a monkey wrench to tighten a nut and damages threads and the head. The nut and bolt has been so ruined that only a hacksaw or welding torch can now be used to remove the nut and bolt. The person curses and throws his tools and complains about machines and products are not being made as well as they used to be made. They don’t see that their own behavior created their problem.

Or consider the sales clerk who lies to a customer about after market warranties. The customer brings back the product for repair. The sales clerk blames management for not standing behind their employees and their customers.

Or consider the manager, who creates strained relationships between his work team, and then blames the individuals when productivity bottoms out.

Business, government, and most of us need a reminder of ethics to understand responsibility.

Being ethical means acting in ways that are consistent with what people, society, individuals, and most religions typically think are good values. Ethical behavior involves demonstrating respect for moral principles like honesty, fairness, equality, dignity, diversity and individual rights. The problem is that many people shade their own behavior when it comes to people who are of a different color, different religion, different sexual persuasion, different ethic background or more. In other words people tend to be judgmental and quite often find fault with others. This is not ethical nor fair.

We all influence the world directly around us. Our choices change our environment, our relationships, and ourselves. We need to understand that our decisions are our responsibility. Sometimes this means taking the blame. It always means doing the right thing.

A RAVE from The Seattle Times:
“To the honest, trustworthy and moral person who restored my faith in human-kind. When I lost my wallet on the Light Rail, I dreaded the hours it would take canceling my accounts and fighting to regain my stolen identity. I chuckled sarcastically when my wife suggested I report it to lost and found, and I laughed outright when the kind gentleman at the King County Metro office cheerfully said, ‘Who knows? There are still some honest people out there!’ Luckily, he was right and I was wrong.”

Everything happens to us, because of us. What we expect from others as well as what we expect from ourselves. Whining doesn’t help. Acceptance of unethical behavior doesn’t help. Maintaining values and choosing the ethical path does. Sharing, serving as an example, and showing the path to others only makes it better. Passing along ethical behavior from generation to generation is an obligation.