6. Commitment to community implies responsibility.

Commitment is a sign of maturity. Commitment means not quitting at the first option or sign of problems. Individuals with strong commitments build strong communities.

Relationships are based on commitment, not just on closeness and intimacy. A person can be intimate and close and yet not be committed. With changing values, it is even considered good to have uncommitted relationships.

Many people are not willing to make commitments because they feel they are not ready for it. However, in the meantime, for years they keep sharing and using anything and everything of one another. Their pretext is, "We are still checking out each other before we commit." What are they checking out that they haven't already checked out in a few days or a few months or a few years?

In my opinion they are selfish parasites who are trying to get as much as possible while the going is good. They are only takers who are a liability to society. Many people confuse commitment with confinement.

Relationships don't last because of pa.s.sion and love but because of commitment and empathy. A commitment implies putting the other person's needs ahead of one's own.

Sometimes good people with the best intentions are faced with conflicting commitments.

For instance,

1. A policeman is committed to caring for his wife who is on her death bed. But all of a sudden he gets an emergency call to handle a situation, at the other end of town where ten lives are at stake. What does he do?

2. A surgeon is looking forward to his daughter's graduation. He is committed to this once-in-a-lifetime event. With all guests at the function, 20 minutes before the ceremony, 164*he gets an emergency call to operate on an accident victim to save his life. What choice does he have?

Choosing one does not mean lack of commitment to the other. The process of making a choice between the two commitments would involve priority, responsibility and duty. Not keeping one over the other would not make the person feel guilty.

Probably what the surgeon feels like doing is attending his daughter's graduation. It doesn't matter what he feels like. Commitment involves the 11 elements we talked about before, whether we feel like it or not.

Keeping commitment shows strength of character. It takes subordinating our desires to the other person's needs but not his whims and fancies.

Needs are essential, whereas desires are infinite. And in case of conflict of needs, one has to prioritize responsibilities and duties. In a relationship such as a marriage, two people are committed to each other. Supposing one develops cancer a year after?

Should one feel cheated? Deprived? Resentful? Blame the other person for ruining his / her life? That is not commitment. That is just selfishness.

The most painful part of commitment is accepting a breach when it happens. The commitment goes on if the breach results from an error of omission. However, it needs evaluation if it is a result of commission. Breach of omission can be handled with compa.s.sion and forgiveness. Whereas the breach of commission says, "You cheat me once, shame on you. You cheat me twice, shame on me."

Either way, for one's own self-interest the answer is forgiveness. As they say, "The wounds get healed but the scars remain." Commitments can rarely be kept without forgiveness. For example, a child may betray his parents' trust by lying or cheating.

People avoid making commitments because many times they are living for today.

WHAT IS OUR GREATEST COMMITMENT?.

What if we made a commitment that is wrong or unethical inadvertently which totally goes against our values and conscience?

That is the time to reevaluate whether or not to go forward.

COMMITMENT TO VALUES.

Loyalties cannot be bought, they are earned. And to whom do we owe loyalties? Is it individuals or organizations? The answer is none of them. We owe loyalties to values.

Where the value system is conflicting, people cannot live in the same home, they cannot work in the same organization.

When a person makes a commitment of loyalty to either an individual or an organization, what is he really saying? He is saying, "I stand by you because I believe in what you believe in."

What if the person I am committed to, be it a leader, spouse, employer, employee becomes a spy for an enemy country? Do I continue my support because I committed earlier? Absolutely not. I am not committed to support unethical and illegal behavior.

Unkept commitments lead to: ?.

Broken homes Abandoned children Poor relationships High stress levels 165*?

Guilt Unfulfilled life Loss of business Isolation Depression

Make a commitment and stay committed!

ETHICS.

Bad circ.u.mstances are not excuses for making bad choices and leading poor lives.

Values and ethics are not just designed for good times, but also to prevent bad times.

They are like the laws of the land which you need when people are good and you need even more to protect them from the bad.

Most choices are not ethical choices. For example, what clothes to buy or what TV to get are personal choices based on what is more appropriate. They are not ethical choices.

For some people the right choice may be Panasonic instead of Sony for affordability.

Personal choices are subjective, not objective, and even though these are not ethical issues they certainly involve responsibility. Ethical choices reflect objectivity between right and wrong.

That is why our conscience hurts when making an unethical choice and does not hurt when making a wrong personal choice. Choices are personal because the person makes it, but the rightness or wrongness does not change from person to person.

Just like in a math test, who takes it and what answer they give varies from person to person, but what makes it right is not the choice, but the independence of the correct answer. Of course, ethical choices are not always like making choices in math, just like being a nice person is not the same thing as being a good and ethical person.

A person could be socially nice yet be a cheat and a liar. That makes him nice yet unethical. Niceness reflects social acceptability. Nice does not mean good.

In fact, most of our choices today are based on:

1. Our desire for convenience, comfort, and pleasure.

2. Our feeling--do what feels good, it is good for you. The criteria is to feel good rather than doing what is responsible.

3. Social fads and ads--everyone else is doing it, so should I.

It is a common belief that ethics and ethical choices are confusing. The big question is to who? Only to those with unclear values.

SITUATIONAL ETHICS.

Those who believe that ethics cannot be generalized but vary with every situation, come up with justification and keep changing their ethics from situation to situation, and person to person. This is called situational ethics. This is ethics of conveniences rather than conviction.

BENCHMARKS.

166*Why do we have standards? They are a measure. One meter in Europe is one meter in Asia. One kilogram of flour is one kilogram of flour wherever you go. People who do not want to adhere to any moral standards keep changing the definition of morality by saying nothing is right or wrong, your thinking makes it so. They put the onus on interpretation rather than on their behavior. They feel "my behavior is OK, your interpretation was messed up."

For example, Hitler could have believed he was right. But the big question is, "Was he right?" Giving money to the hungry for food is right but at the same time giving money to buy drugs is not right.

The generalization sets the benchmark, the exception is the situation. For example, murder is wrong. That is a general statement and a generalized truth and ethical standard. Unless it is in self-defense. This doesn't say that it is OK to murder if the weather is good or if you feel like it.

A person's interests, other than his job, tells much about him. The way a person spends his leisure time reflects on his performance at work. A drug addict if running short of money would be more likely to embezzle than a person who is not an addict.

Our standard of ethics is revealed by the advisors we hire, the suppliers we pick, and the buyers we deal with.

Opinions may vary from culture to culture. But values such as fairness, justice, integrity and commitment are universal and eternal. They have nothing to do with culture. Never has there been a time when society has not respected courage over cowardice.

Ethics and justice involve the following:

Empathy Fairness Compa.s.sion for the injured The larger interest of society

Just because more people agree on something doesn't make it right. For example, if ten perverts agree on a s.a.d.i.s.tic act to hurt an innocent, does that make it right? No. Just like the laws of gravity, ethics are pretty universal. Just as freedom without discipline leads to destruction, similarly, society without a set of principles destroys itself. If values were so subjective, no criminals should be in jail. Why have a police force?

A society becomes good or bad, based on the ethical values of individuals. And what gives society its strength is ethical values. Some people enjoy taking drugs--it makes them feel good. Does that make it good?

People who believe in the theory of relativity, actually get stuck in their own paradox.

They say, "Everything is relative." That is the absolute truth. It is self-contradictory. The distinction between right and wrong, dishonesty and honesty presupposes their existence. Changing terminology does not change the meaning. Just like changing the labels does not change the contents.

People are changing moral values by giving new names and it is glamorized by the media. Liars are called extroverts with an imagination.

When Michael Sovern, the president of Columbia University resigned in 1993, a reporter asked him if there was any task left incomplete. "Yes," replied Govern. "It sounds complacent, but there is really only one." He referred to the lack of instructions in ethics.... The average undergraduate, however, gets no training in these areas. Most educators are afraid to touch the subject. Ethics are usually left to be addressed by parents. The result is that in this country young people who need moral and ethical 167*training more than ever are getting less than ever. Morals and ethics are not a religion.

They are logical, sensible principles of good conduct that we need for a peaceful society.

* Adapted from John Beckley, "Isn't It Time to Wake Up?" in The Best of. . . Bits ~U Pieces, Economics Press, Fairfield, NJ, 1994, p. 129.

168*ETHICS AND LEGALITY

Most will agree that legality and ethics are not the same thing. What may be ethical may or may not be legal and vice versa.

For example: