What Are Your Values and How Do You Live Them?

The Oxford Dictionary defines morals as “a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do”. For me, a person's morals and principles are everything. That is NOT to say I don’t respect other people’s beliefs, that is different. Morals, to me, are more vague. Racial and gender equality, kindness, just being a good human and doing what you can to benefit yourself and society.

Anyone who knows me knows that I take my personal morals and principles very seriously. Sometimes to the point of annoyance, I’m sure, for others. I know for a fact that no one wanted to wait for me to finish watching the Presidential debate before we could do something fun, but I felt it my personal responsibility to be educated before I vote. I highly doubt that they enjoy taking me someplace else to eat after they eat at Chik-Fil-A, as I refuse to eat or spend money there under any circumstances due to their stance on homosexuality and their withholding of scholarship money to LGBTQ+ individuals. And I can guarantee that many of my peers don’t understand my reluctance to contribute to “fast fashion” on sites like Shein.

I often hear “I’m just one person, if I don’t do this it doesn’t really matter”. Sure, that’s true if you choose to see it like that. However, I don’t. I don’t not eat at Chik-Fil-A because I believe that I personally can shut down their multi-million dollar corporation. It’s not about that and it never has been; rather, the idea of giving money (in a society where money = power) to a brand that does not align with my values makes me uncomfortable. I look at my LGBTQ+ friends and I think about how that simple act of complacence may not affect them individually, but I imagine how it coul

d. The message it would send. The saying that “Silence is violence” is incredibly accurate. By doing nothing, you may as well have screamed your apathy from the rooftops. And, I feel that apathy is the highest form of privilege. But more on that at a later date (I can’t broach every world problem in one prose).

Morals are not always convenient. In fact, I’ve found they are more often than not. It’s hard to be the person to call something out, or awkwardly announce a difference of opinion when you want nothing more than to blend in. But that is what makes them so important. If they were easy, they wouldn’t matter. I’m not saying that everyone has to go hold a protest or win a Nobel peace prize. But there are likely small ways in your own life that you can begin to live more true to your own code of ethics. I realize new ways often.

If a person does not have their morals, what do they have? Without them you become complacent cog in the machine. Going through the motions, without ever really caring about anything. Humanity is to care, humanity is passion. Without that, you become less than. It’s how you find your people, and how you live your life. A set of “principles” to guide you. If you don't have anything you are truly passionate about enough to live out, are you really living?

Yes, you may be one person. But you’re not doing it solely for the outcome, rather because it is something you believe. Imagine if we all stopped projecting the responsibility of creating change on our peers, and instead began to look inward at ourselves and our own lives. To those that feel they are just one, I beg the question, why do you think your actions matter more if others are with you? It is the same action. Stop looking to others to set the bar, and raise the bar in your own life. Stop doubting the impact that you have in this world, as Mother Teresa said “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples”. Oftentimes your actions or lack thereof will create more ripples than you will ever know. Whether they be positive or negative.