A Bad Choice That Was Thought To Be Good

Last week I wrote about “men without chests,” people of all ages and both sexes who lack an important tool in the decision making process.

Why they lack this tool is, at least in part, a mystery to me. As the philosophers would say, I can posit an answer. That’s a fancy way of saying “make an educated guess.”

First, the tool they are lacking is morality. In the past I’ve called that a moral compass, a well known term. It’s as if, when they were young and at the age of acquiring an understanding of morality, it was not offered to them.

That is one possibility. Another is that they have a moral compass but have never been taught — or have forgotten — how to use it, so it is of no effect.

All this reminds me of my time in basic training in the U. S. Army. As the training became a little more advanced, we were sent out into “the field” to simulate what we might encounter if we were lost in another country. Each of us was issued a compass and a map of the territory we were in.

We were then packed into the backs of trucks that were covered and driven to an area we’d never seen, divided into squads, dropped off here and there, and instructed to find our way back to camp. There our squad stood, a dozen of us in a small circle, some looking at their map and some looking at their compass.

Like a person whose car dies lifting the lid and staring at an engine, some hoped the answer would reveal itself. It did not.

Read the map

If you are 20 years old or younger and reading this, you may have never seen a paper map. But you will have seen a map on your phone, and everyone will know the purpose of the map is to help you find your way around. Most likely you often use a map as a guide to your destination.

Electronic maps also include a compass, showing you both an overall and a specific direction.

Back in those days, we had a magnetic compass and a paper map. We had to combine those ourselves in order to plan our route.

All of us had received some training in that, but none of us were experts. Fortunately a few of us had been in Boy Scouts (now Scouts) and were a little more adept with the tools we had been given.

Having a map and a compass is very helpful, especially if you know even the basics of using the two together. Of course things like rivers and canyons might get in the way, but the goal doesn’t change. Abandon the compass, though, even if you keep the map, and the journey will be much, much more difficult.

And that is a lot like life.

Why we need a moral compass

In life we may not be trying to get back to our post, but we are trying to get somewhere. That’s true for every business, every marriage, every student, and every athlete. Everyone is trying to get somewhere.

In business that might be profitability, it might be world domination, or somewhere in between. For marriage it might be 50 years or it might be just the next year. A student might be trying to get to graduation, or more school, or the honor roll. Athletes are often trying to get to “the next level,” and sometimes to the top of their sport.

How do you get there? You read the map.

“This is where I am,” you say, “and this is where I am trying to be.” Then you ask for, and receive, directions. Athletes have coaches, business people have mentors, we all have friends. They all have home-made maps.

But to navigate rightly, we need one more thing: a moral compass.

Allow me to push this analogy a tiny bit further using a modern day GPS system. I get in my car, set my destination, and the map tells me the fastest route. I see that it is not my normal route, because on that way there has been a crash, and now it’s not the best way.

A moral compass is kind of like that. It doesn’t force me in one direction or another, but it does tell me there will be consequences for making a particular choice.

Booth and Lincoln

When Ulysses S. Grant heard the news that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated, he “dropped his head, and sat in perfect silence.” Later he told his wife, Julia, that the news filled him “with the gloomiest apprehension. The President was inclined to be kind and magnanimous, and his death at this time is an irreparable loss to the South, which now needs so much both his tenderness and magnanimity.”

John Wilkes Booth had decided that killing Lincoln was the best thing he could do for the South. Only 26 years old, he had hated Lincoln for several years. His original plan was to kidnap him, but an opportunity for assassination presented itself and he changed his plans. He and his two colleagues would simultaneously assassinate Lincoln, Vice President Johnson, and Secretary of State Seward.

The attempt to kill Seward nearly succeeded, the person assigned to kill Johnson didn’t try, but Booth, the leader, shot Lincoln and escaped.

Several days later Union soldiers caught up with him and an accomplice. That man surrendered, but Booth did not and was shot by a soldier. He died a few hours later.

One of the things he was carrying was a compass. Unfortunately it was not the moral kind.

What about us? Do we only carry a compass that will take us where we want to go, or do we also carry a moral compass that helps us find the right path?

So many bad choices are made that are thought to be good, simply for lack of a working moral compass. Don’t let that be you.

Do good. It’s in you.

Here’s a good choice: be thankful. Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation is an inspiring example for us as we give thanks 160 years later.