On Being A Happy Ethical And Ethical Person

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The esteemed American investor Henry Kravis once said, “If you don’t have integrity, you have nothing. You can’t buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing.” Living ethically is vitally important to enjoying a purposeful, fulfilling life. However, humans are flawed creatures by nature, and it is not easy to always be ethical. It is tempting for us to take the easy, often unethical way out in different situations, but we must strive to fight this instinct. As Patrick J. Schiltz details in his piece, “On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession,” we cannot change into consistently ethical people overnight. Rather,
I believe that I usually have a strong moral compass in matters involving others, and that I am empathetic to the struggles of the people around me. I do not like hurting people, and I would never do anything to someone else that I thought could have a serious negative effect on them. I am not, however, as ethical as I would like to be in situations pertaining to my own self-interest. As Schiltz describes in his writing, I sometimes cut corners and exercise lapses in ethical behavior. These spells are not good, and when done enough they compound upon each other and can have a serious impact on how ethical I am as a person. I do not want to be the person who is consistently forgoing ethical behavior to take shortcuts for their own self-interest. Rather, I want to be the type of person that looks at every decision through an ethical lens. Every time a person faces a decision, they are presented with an ethical choice and a choice that involves cutting corners. I want to be the person that chooses the ethical option every time. I believe that person leads a more gratifying, moral life than the corner cutter. Living ethically also has a positive impact on one’s work ethic, character, and drive, as the ethical option is often the harder choice in many

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