Photorealistic 3D sky-high succress street sign
In our desire to win, to succeed, to prosper, we tend to prioritize competition and the "every man for himself" mentality, and endorse the concept that there are times when it's necessary to step on other people in order to get ahead, that all is fair in love, war and business as well.
It's not. If we win at the expense of others, it's not winning. It's losing. And only our spiritual shortsightedness prevents us from seeing this. We need to establish consistency between our spiritual and business worlds, not dualities and double standards. How we treat other people should be the measure of our success.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating poverty as some spiritual benchmark. It's okay to be rich. It's okay to win and succeed, to have money and power. But we need to maintain our ethical, moral and spiritual values as we're doing so. We need to remember our obligation to our families, our communities, our societies and our world.
Success and ethics are not mutually exclusive
It is not appropriate to "let them eat cake." It is not appropriate to have massive excesses of money and resources and not share a generous portion with those who have less than we do. If we are not our brother's keeper in the sense of watching out for those less fortunate and helping them to better their lives, then we may be rich monetarily but poor in spirit. And maybe, just maybe, that matters.
It is, after all, not a stretch to believe that our world and its financial institutions have decayed to such a state of dysfunction and disrepair because of the failure of our leaders to insist that morals, principles, generosity and fairness be part of the success-in-business equation.
That being the case, it now becomes critical that we rebuild our institutions with the mortar of truth, compassion and generosity, appreciating the fact that perhaps no sustainable success is possible if the foundations of our institutions are fortified by unethical practices, selfishness and greed.
Let each of us rise above the business battlefield and rebuild our country and our world in ways we can be proud of, by refusing to make business and career choices that are ethically and humanistically questionable and don't take into consideration the effects they will have on our planet and our planetary brothers and sisters.
