Personal Moral Values

Many people strive to live a good life. But not many people strive to live ethical lives. For them, a good life is one that is satisfying for them alone, and this doesn’t always mean it will be ethical. People will be petty, they will be mean, and they will be selfish if it means life being satisfying. There will be times where people will ignore their own morals in order to gratify themselves. This is not to say that being selfish is unethical, but actively harming others for your self interest is unethical. So in order to live an ethical life, what moral values should we have in order to negate our personal feelings about things, and live an ethical life to help society? 

Our first moral value is honesty. The moral value of honesty is one the one that creates trust, truthfulness, and integrity. You must be honest to everyone with your intentions, and not deceive them for your own self interests. This means always being transparent in your actions and words, in order to make sure people understand what you have to communicate. Don’t lie in order to appease the crowd, as you will only hurt people when you tell the truth. You need to show sincerity with what you do, and not contradict your actions and words. If you want to criticize someone, don’t try and sugarcoat your words, as it will only show insincerity in what you are. You must also be honest to yourself,  so that you don’t doubt yourself. By being honest, you will know what you truly are.

The second moral value is loyalty. Why do we need loyalty? Because loyalty allows us to understand what kind of things we truly value. We don’t want to bring harm to those we value, whether they be people or organizations. Having the ability to stand by something even in the face of difficulty shows how much you truly value something. If we are to do ethical things, we need to know what we value. If we don’t have any loyalty to anyone or anything, we will inevitably do unethical things because of boredom or apathy. Loyalty to something allows us to sacrifice our own self interest to help others is key to living an ethical life. We will know what we want to do if we are loyal to something. It is through loyalty that we can show others how much we value them.

And finally, the third moral value is integrity. We need to know what is right, and we need to be able to adhere to it. If we know a certain action isn’t right, and yet we do it anyway shows we don’t care about the consequences. And if we don’t care about the consequences, then it shows a lack of moral values, or a corrupted one. By having integrity, we show that we are strong in our beliefs and morals, strong enough that it cannot be broken easily. Integrity means being consistent, and that shows that our morals are something we abide in. Integrity helps us by making us committed to following a set of moral values, no matter what happens.

Why do I think these moral values are the most important things to have? Because of my parents, and my loyalty and faith in God. Ever since I was young, my parents have always told me that honesty is the best policy. Lying and tricking someone will only have short term benefits, and only benefits either yourself or a small amount of people. Dishonesty will lead to others avoiding and hating you, as anything you have to say will be considered lies. It might be a “respectful sin” (a sin that is very subtle), but this means that you don’t think of the consequences when you lie. From my reading of the Bible, lying is the first sin ever done. It’s also the easiest, as you don’t have much to do. If you can keep yourself from doing “respectable sins”, you will have the integrity to keep yourself from doing “major sins.”

Loyalty comes from remembering the sacrifice of Jesus. He was loyal to the end in saving us, even when we were stoning him to death. He knew what he wanted to do, and went through with it. He was loyal to us, even when we didn’t deserve it. I want to be able to show others the same kind of loyalty by sacrificing my happiness to help them, even if they don’t deserve it. I also saw loyalty with my parents. They were loyal to each other, and loyal to giving us the best childhood they could give us. That’s what I saw, when they were sacrificing their time and effort to homeschool us, and sacrificing opportunities in various organizations to be with each other. My father was once given the opportunity to work in the Middle East, and in another time, my mother was given the opportunity to work in Europe. Yet, because of their loyalty to each other, they did not accept these opportunities, because they valued each other too much to be apart from each other.

Integrity was something I saw not just from my parents, but from my older brothers as well. They never faltered in their moral values, and even when this integrity disappointed them, they were still willing to stand by their morals. I saw this in my brothers, when they finished their school work without cheating, even when the freedom of homeschooling gave them the opportunity to. My dad once gave up the opportunity to serve in church because he knew spending time helping lead worship songs was wrong if his own family never saw him. And I remember a friend of mine showing her integrity by giving other students the opportunity to learn, even when the teachers were told to make them learn themselves. My classmate saw their difficulty in understanding, and even though these students were slackers and irresponsible, she took the time to help them because her integrity told her everyone deserves the chance to be taught.

My culture has a very big influence on my personality morality. My culture as a kid who was homeschooled with Christian parents meant that my parents would always teach me various bible stories, and immerse me in many church related activities. Because of this, my morality, while not completely the same as my parents, is influenced by Christianity. I’m not impressed by many progressive people, because from my perspective the Bible is enough for us to follow. I don’t believe in subjective truths for example, as I was taught that there is one truth, and people who don’t abide from it are either ignorant or liars. I don’t like progressive who demand that things cater to them, because I was taught that everything has their place in the world, and that trying to please everyone will only end up in you destroying yourself.

So in the end I think that honesty, loyalty, and integrity are the most important moral values there are. It is through them that we can be sure of what we know, what we value, and what we want to do. It is through my faith and parents that I developed these values. And my culture is something that has influenced my personal morality grately, and helps me navigate the current progressive environment we are living in. I’m someone who knows what he is, and how he wants to help others.