The world _______

Why bother...honestly

Warning: Rant Ahead

Well, been thinking lately...why is it, that there are those who work their A$$ off, but yet get NO WHERE, why? I know of people who have worked their whole life, always being moral, and upstanding. Yet they are blackmalled, and their reputation shattered. Why? Because they wouldn't play the G-- D--- games, they wouldn't blackmall, blackmail, steal, etc... They stood strong to their morals. While others around them tossed them aside like a rag doll. Why is it that those who do this (those who threw aside their morals) get ahead in life? I can think of five people that i have known, met, or known of but never met, who have done this. Three of them are in high level positions at the local hospitol, and two others have been fired, because they've been caught doing...'bad things'.

Why is it that when some people "turn corners", they get slammed with more "bad luck". That they get screwed, YET again! Why?

Why are their those that claim they are tolerant, but ridicule those that are not in agreement with them? Why?

Why should we go on? Sure we have family and friends...some would betray you in an instant......

I mean people...WTF!?

Are we truely so evil, so corrupt....is this the path that we as a race will take....down the winding road of selfishness,etc... Will this be our downfall...maybe....if we do not change...

Can any one honestly tell me 'why'?

--Lucas

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Your anger here Lucas appears to be because people you consider to be ethical, moral and upstanding are being shafted by a corrupt and selfish world, rather than rewarded for their constancy.

Well, yes. Sad, but often the case. The world IS frequently a corrupt and morally bankrupt place. Take politics, for example. 'Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely' runs the old adage. Much truth there, I think. I see precious few politicians around me of ANY political hue concerned with anything but themselves. Perhaps some of them at least are attracted into politics initially by ethical concerns, but in order to achieve even a modicum of success in the political arena, they have to become such self-serving, two-faced, back-stabbing hard-nosed b*st*rds that any last vestiges of an ethical basis for their actions are long gone by the time they even start to make political names for themselves. As the anarchists would have it: 'It doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.'

So, my apologies but I'm going to answer your implied question with a question of my own, Lucas ... what should be our PURPOSE for living a life that is ethical, moral, upstanding, constant?

Should it be in the expectation that we will be rewarded for it? Surely not - that makes the motive an explicitly selfish one. I would suggest that it should be - that it can ONLY be - that we see something inherently worthwhile in doing the 'right' thing. The possible benefits to ourselves of adopting such a stance should not be the only reason behind it.

I am in the process of changing career, which will effectively halve my income. Am I mad about this? No, because I happen to believe - perhaps a little pompously, I admit - that, in however small a way, I will be serving society better for having made this change.

I am not a religious person Lucas, so I cannot tell you that you will get your reward in heaven. Rather, I would say that your reward is in your own psyche - in knowing that you have acted according to what you believe to be noble principles. (And yes, I appreciate that this in itself can be perceived as a kind of selfishness, in that it can help one sleep better, it can make one a happier, more fulfilled person.)

So, by all means be angry about those you perceive as getting a raw deal. But the answer is not to ask 'Why bother?' - that way, you simply join the ranks of those actively or passively doing the shafting. I think the answer is to follow your own ethics, and hope that by example these will, in some small way perhaps, rub off on others.

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Wow, long answer...

Your anger here Lucas appears to be because people you consider to be ethical, moral and upstanding are being shafted by a corrupt and selfish world, rather than rewarded for their constancy.

--Perhaps

what should be our PURPOSE for living a life that is ethical, moral, upstanding, constant?

--How do you feel when you help a person, give someone who needs money desperatley money? Does it makes you feel good? Thats why i live a life as ethical, moral and upstanding as much as i can. I can't say i am perfect, I'm human...

I am not a religious person Lucas, so I cannot tell you that you will get your reward in heaven. Rather, I would say that your reward is in your own psyche - in knowing that you have acted according to what you believe to be noble principles. (And yes, I appreciate that this in itself can be perceived as a kind of selfishness, in that it can help one sleep better, it can make one a happier, more fulfilled person.)

--Neither am i, i always thought my leanings led me to buddhism...but now i think i am more agnostic (and cynical) than anything... Part of me wants to think that there is a "heavan" after death...but...the way of life makes me dout it...

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