Those people who have been moaning and groaning about our unethical, corrupt society will be well-advised to believe that eventually unethical acts catch up to the wrongdoers. 

Conversely, those who live an ethical life will also be rewarded in kind.  This is not wishful or positive thinking.  Ethics is defined as having to do with morality’s effect on conduct.  What you do, how you treat your friends, and how you behave every day defines your morality, your honor, your honesty, your ethics. 

You are not living an ethical life just because you’re not in jail.  Or because you donate huge sums to charity, as if that could wash away all sins.      

Do ethics have to do with being kind?  To whom does one have to be kind:  one’s dog, one’s grandmother, one’s children?  Everyone one meets?  Being kind is kind of nice, but it doesn’t mean one is ethical. 

An ethical person will never do the following:    

Steal a book from the library.  Have you?  Especially if that was one big fat book you knew you would never have finished in time, so you just took it and slipped it into your bag.  You meant to return it some day when you finished reading it.  But lo and behold!  It is still there, in your own personal library.  By now, of course, the public library must have replaced it, so here, at home, it will stay.

Don’t tell your friends about this.  They will worry your light fingers may make off with one of their treasures one day.

An ethical person will never tell a little lie to get out of going to a party when another, much better invitation comes along for the same night.  Have you?  So on the night of the first party you agreed to attend, you call and say you are sick.  Then you go to the other soiree. 

You will be lucky if no one sees you at that second party and reports it to your friend who invited you first.  If they do, say goodbye to your friend, because he or she will never invite you to a party again, or possibly even talk to you. 

An ethical person arrives on time, all the time.  If people expect you at a certain time, do you habitually arrive 10, 20 or even 30 minutes late?  Are you late to work, to class, to the theatre?   Has it ever occurred to you that being late is another form of lying?  You are letting people down by not keeping your word to arrive on time.

You may think people have forgiven you, but they will always remember that you are the latecomer to all their events.  In time the invitations may lessen and then drop off altogether, and you probably won’t even realize why.

Do you keep valuable things that you find, without attempting to discover the rightful owners?  For example, if you found a diamond ring on the sink of a public restroom in a grand hotel, would you give it to the manager at the front desk?  But no, you would not, because you lieve that person would keep it for himself, so why should you give him such an expensive gift?  Better to keep it for yourself.

As in the first example here, don’t tell your friends if you do this.  They will worry that you might rip them off one day, because your sense of morality is so lax.

One of the great benefits of being ethical is that you get to keep your friends because they trust you and perceive of you as being honest and ethical. 

Another benefit is you get to keep your library membership which you are certain to lose if they catch your stealing their books.

You also improve your chances of keeping your job if you arrive promptly each morning. 

Another benefit of the ethical life is avoiding being branded a thief in public if someone sees you wearing their diamond ring they thought they had lost forever. 

And a great big benefit is the good feeling you have when you return something of value to its rightful owner and receive their heartfelt thanks and undying gratitude.

These are all little things, you say, too little to matter.  But theft has been outlawed since biblical times, if not before.  And lying is unethical.  And always being late bothers people as much as anything else.  Finally, not troubling to find the rightful owner of a valuable item and keeping it for yourself is, plain and simple, theft.  And you are the thief.  How many of your friends want a thief for a friend?

You don’t have to commit murder to live a dishonorable or unethical, life.  You just have to forget your word is your bond and your actions display your ethics.  That’s all it takes to be someone who has no morals, no ethics and no honor.  But don’t feel bad.  You are not alone.  There are plenty of people who live without morals or ethics.  Our jails are full of them, and so is our political system.