[right|wrong|need]

The right way to do something is rarely the easiest, cheapest, or funnest way to do it. And to be fair, how often do we ask ourselves, is that the right thing to do? Need is a primary motivation, not ethics and morality.

You need to wire all the nuts on a racing bike, never mind how time consuming it is. Yes, it is the right thing to do, but the need is in the safety rules, not in that ethically it is right.

You need to follow the rules of the road to arrive safely at your destination, never mind it is ethically the right thing to ensure you are driving safely for others on the road as well. It is a shared experience, each holding each others lives in our hands, not out or some altruistic moral goodness, but the need to move from point to point safely. In breaking the laws, driving reckless, you are more than violating the rights of others to safely use the shared space, your ignorance and self centered approach is ethically and morally corrupt, in which we use the absolute construct of law to enforce the need.

That’s a bit long winded, but in nearly every aspect of your life, your decisions are directed by need more than whether it is ethically right to do so.

This may be a “duh” moment. Of course it is, I can hear you say. For this I say pull the thread. Tease it out and see where it takes you. If the decisions you are making…personal, political, theoretical…if these are based on need, as opposed to what is the right thing to do, at what cost will this turn in the long run?