Why morality matters?

Why morality matters? Why do I even bother?

Why can't a married man cheat and keep a mistress on the side? Why can't a woman lie to get her way? Why can't I enrich myself financially without worrying about how my actions may hurt others? 

Why is a stranger who needs help a brother or sister of mine? Why should I be an honest loser when it would clearly be more rewarding to be a dishonest winner? 

If everybody is doing it and getting away with it, why can't I do the same and get away with it? 

Why morality matters? Why do I even bother?

Well, if anything, morality matters. I say this not because Big Daddy up there is watching. I say this not because it feels just right. And I say this not because vices always pay homage to virtues. 

Morality matters because it is personal to me. I am married with three young kids. I have a career of helping people with their legal issues. I am a friend to a handful of them. I am a colleague and an employee. I am a husband to my wife and a father to my children. I am a son, a brother and a citizen of a state. I am accountable to all of them. 

That accountability compels me to act within boundaries defined by time-and-tested moral values. 

No doubt, I can perform those roles just as well even if I only pay lip service to these values, and live my life as if they do not apply to me. Or maybe be selective about them whenever it is convenient? Let me stretch this further. 

I can be furtive about my transgressions. I can be discreet about my indiscretions. No one will ever find out. I can outdo, outplay and outwit the whistle blowers (that is, for as long as the credulous allow me to, as many rich and corrupt people have gone to their graves with personal welfare unscathed and reputation intact). 

Well, I can always be a step ahead of the rules, the law and even my conscience. By then, wouldn’t my conscience be my most abiding partner in the most unvirtuous? 

I can live a double life, upholding a double standard, keeping a deft balance of my double minds. In short, I can still be accountable to all of them even if I am not accountable to myself. 

The temptation is no doubt irresistible; some may even say that I am beyond foolish to reject the blue pill (a life of unimaginable bliss and fortune) instead of biting the red pill (knowing the harsh reality of life). 

But herein lies a danger when morality turns over. It is a very thin red line and once I cross it, I will lose myself. I will enter a world whereby I am no longer the master of my fate. 

In fact, I have to share it with something unwittingly groomed within me. Something that demands its fair share from me. Something that grows bigger each passing day. 

But this partnership plays an insidious game on me. And it remains gentlemanly about it. 

It will make me feel as if I am in control. It will give me this illusion of power. It will make all I want readily within my reach and it will ensure that my lust for them grows far beyond my understanding of it. 

This game that this partnership has to offer will not cease until it elevates me to a point where I am empowered by this impervious sense of invincibility, even to a point when I feel I am god. 

Of course, this enthronement will not be announced publicly, and will even be denied openly. But it will no doubt be relished and nursed quietly within. 

At this point, at this switch of the bait, the gentleman becomes the rogue and the puppet becomes the puppet master. And I, once the hunter, will become the hunted in the same way that the stalker becomes the prey. 

Once I lose my conscience or sell it away to the highest bidder, I will lose what it means to live without envy, what it means to love without conditions, what it means to tell the truth at all costs without shame, and what it means to give without expectation. 

Alas, by then, my hope will be in how to make more, much more. My integrity will be in keeping promises that I will benefit most at the expense of others. And my gratitude will be reserved only for myself, for living a life I am proud of, that is, a life played by my own rules with no or little regards for family, friends and community. 

My humanity will progressively be indistinguishable from my inhumanity. I will live with the orgy of conflicts and the demons in my mind will make my pillow hard, my dreams desperate and my sleep restless. 

I can imagine my conscience as the canary of the coalmine in my spirit. Once the canary dies, my inner world will collapse without any warning. And I will never know about it because a dead canary makes no noise. 

I will be lost yet never knowing why. I will be broken yet thinking that all‘s well. I will be tormented yet unable to relieve the pain. I will be constantly shifting in the shadows of deceit, avoiding the light of truth that shines through the cracks of my many varied and confounding personas. 

So, why morality matters? Why do I even bother? It matters because I cannot be perfect and the next best thing to perfection is to live a life that pays tribute to timeless moral values. 

For this reason, my moral boundary ought to always be a progress towards something good and worthy and not a constant escape from something dark and unwieldy, thereby never finding rest, contentment and peace. 

I believe that living with a moral conscience and applying it when duty calls will not guarantee me riches; neither gold nor silver. It will not bestow unto me worldly power nor elevate me to fame at the finest hour. 

I may even live an ordinary life by jealously guarding my integrity, and even be mocked and dismissed for being a loser, a prude, a coward or an underachiever. 

But still, I strive for the road less travelled. It is a road that avoids the many things that this world has to offer. It is a road that refuses to bargain off what truly matters in this life at a price I cannot afford or bear to pay if I earnestly treasure the things that money cannot buy.

There will therefore be many moral pitfalls on the road that challenges and tempts me to choose between two opposing values. And when the time comes for me to choose, I shall consciously choose what is right and live with its consequences regardless because choosing otherwise will only mean that my humanity is for sale. 

No doubt, if I had been less inflexible and more compromising, I may be enriched at the appropriate juncture. I may even live an easy and charmed life thereafter. 

But then, I will forever be a slave to riches, fame and power. I will never know what it means to be free. And never knowing freedom is never knowing what it means to be me. 

And if character is what I do when I think no one is looking, then let me always be reminded to do right with my loved ones, my friends my community and my conscience, so that whether in the light or in darkness, they will know that I am largely one and the same. 

(Photo credit to dirty duck restaurant in Bali, Ubud, and to also remind me that taking life less seriously matters too).