theory of ethics
(First published - March 8th 2016)
As a young man, I was always told by my mum that ethics were important.
If I was to go for drinks with friends etc. then she told me I should always ensure I pay my way, make sure I buy my round at the pub, regardless of other peoples ethics in that situation… The problem is, that advice, though being positive only escalates and becomes detrimental later in life…
I am a very caring guy, I possibly care too much about helping everyone I can, without any bearing on how that will effect me later.
This could mean doing some free consulting, running a job at cost, trusting people to pay out on a commission after you’ve delivered the new revenue… And these positive ethics have sort of left me reeling…
Lets take this year (2016) as an example, 85% of my clients woke up and decided irrespective of 30 day payment terms, that it was acceptable to leave their bills for 60 days or more, meaning we have to jump on the phone to chase them down, while our company suffers from a cash flow management perspective.
I’ve also run numerous sales campaigns for silver spoon businessmen, who build their business on mummy and daddy’s successes and who’ve never paid out on what is essentially ten’s of thousands of £’s in commission…
People moan all the time that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and as much as I’m not one for a sweeping statement, I’ve a fair amount of evidence to back that up, for the most part. It seems to be that people/businesses with money, hold control over the little guy.
It also appears to me that the unethical around us, never seem to get their just desserts, leading me to believe that eventually, when the ethical folk get bored of being trodden on, they will slowly start to evolve into the other area of the spectrum, and so on and so forth… How can the world and it’s surrounding Universe continue in this vein? How do we control the issue?
When everything becomes abut politics, or your accent, or whether you wear certain clothes for example, how do you drive a change?
As a salesman I was never willing to sell my mum up the river for a deal, where others might have been and I still always managed to come out on top, so it can be done!
We don’t have to live like the wolf of wall street to get by in life, though lets be honest, the wolf of wall street did OK financially, and now people seem to think he’s cool…
The recent film wasn’t about the issues that his children will go through because of his neglect and abuse, or his wife’s depressive/suicidal state, because of the other women and the beatings, it’s now become a case of ‘isn’t he a trend setter’ because he beats his chest and has a Hollywood movie and a book out… Where’s the justice there? Why are we idolising individuals who hold traits we teach our children to avoid?
I honestly don’t know whether there is a solution, because money breeds greed and there are few who are not swayed by the thought of having a lot of it.
I just want to be happy, I want to know that I don’t have a financial concern, that doesn’t have to be millions it’s more about sustainability and I want to wake up every day and look forward to going to do whatever job it is that I do…
I want to afford myself the time to enjoy my friends and their families, to spend time with mine and try and make a dent in the way people think, I’ve tried for years to just grit my teeth, continue with the ‘positive karma’ theory and evolve, however, patience is waning and I just wish I could see more evidence of the positive in people day to day…
