Seek the choice that gives you that peaceful easy feeling
Alyric from The Eagles’ song “The Best of My Love” was running through my head recently: “You see it your way, I see it mine, but we both see it slipping away.”
The words and melody were implanted like an earworm not because
of a sudden desire to relive my freshman year in college, but because of several conversations I’ve had with readers or friends about ethical challenges they told me they were facing.
The conversations each started similarly. “I want to do the right thing here,” or a close variation, followed quickly by a description of a disagreement or challenging situation. Each of them was talking with me because I regularly write about how people grapple with making ethical choices, and I have some insight. Most of us have insight.
Whether the person asking for it finds it something they want to hear is a different thing.
When someone seeks advice on “doing the right thing” or making an ethical choice, all I can do is to help
them think through the choice they
are about to make. I can listen and offer them feedback on whether what they have done or plan to do seems fair to all parties involved. I can help them try to see how other stakeholders involved might be affected by their choices. I can do all sorts
of things to help them try to make the best right choice they can make.
What I can’t do is to ensure that their decision to do what’s right will result in the outcome they desire. A business relationship might suffer if they choose to take a strong stand that runs counter to the desires of others in that business. A friendship might be strained. Ultimately, a
choice might be made that strikes them as
being morally abhorrent. No matter how ethically right someone is in making the choice they make, it is no guarantee that others will see the world the way they do.
This doesn’t mean that whoever they find themselves up against is immoral or unethical – at least not always. More often than not, it simply means that one person’s
ethical choice is not the same as another’s. They simply disagree.
Joan Didion wrote in her 1965 essay,
“The Insidious Ethic of Conscience,” that “when we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something” but that it is a “moral imperative that we have it,” that is when “we join the fashionable madmen,” and that “is when we are in bad trouble.”
I will tell you the same things I tell those who seek advice: Choose to do the right thing not because it will result in you always getting your way and not because your righteousness will always win over others, but because ultimately having the integrity to think through a situation and to do what you believe to be right will help
keep you from becoming the person you swore you never wanted to become. It just may give you that “peaceful easy feeling” The Eagles first sang about back when I was in high school — and now is another song I can’t get out of my head.
Stepladder/stepstool
A must-have for many household needs. Many injuries take place due to people using chairs or other inappropriate stand-ins for a ladder. Remember to practice ladder safety: Never go beyond its recommended top step, don’t try to reach just a few inches more, and have a buddy hold and stabilize the ladder for you.
Emergency supply kit Drill and drill bits
A battery-powered drill and driver is an essential home tool. Add a selection of drill bits in many sizes to be ready for whatever you need. The standard 12-volt cordless drill you can find at many big-box stores should provide more than enough juice for most home purposes.
FEMA recommends keeping an easily accessible kit with these items for emergencies: three days of food for every person in the house, one gallon of water per day per person, first aid kit, flashlight, weather radio, basic tools, dust masks, plastic sheets, garbage bags, can opener, medicine, hygiene products and cellphone charger. You can find more details from FEMA at Ready.gov/kit.
Safety equipment
Keep plastic gloves, leather gloves, dust masks, ear protection
and eye protection on hand. You never know when a job might call for them. It’s wise to use protection during a wide variety of tasks — a mishap during yard work or while using a drill can lead to eye injury. You can usually find safety kits that will include all the basics you need.