Everyone always says “nobody’s perfect” to somehow arouse in you the feeling of freedom to experiment or try something uncomfortable. But I’m sick of that cliché. Why use the word “perfect” in such a way that is untouchable? Language, after all, is made by humans for humans. You are a human being—you have to learn and try things. That is perfection in my book. Human beings are not static. Nor do we reach a kind of state of perfection like the Eastern mystics talk about. We live in a world of values that we have to choose every day. And I feel the same way about morality.
To be moral does not mean to be omniscient or all-knowing in order to be good. Another one of my pet peeves is when people say, “Morality isn’t black and white.” Well, Ayn Rand would tell you that it most certainly is. And here is how: It’s true that there can be some gray actions on a day-to-day basis. However, the culmination of those actions and the motivation behind each of them leads to being moral (good) or immoral (bad) as a whole person. An individual is made up of values, and those values can only be achieved and kept when they are identified and morally achieved. For example, if you want a greater sense of self-esteem, then you practice really hard to ace a test, truly learn the subject matter, and get that good grade. If you want to damage that sense of self-esteem, then you cheat on the test, not learn the material, but still get an A.
I have “made it.” I am happy. I have a wonderful, supportive husband. We hope to have our own children soon. I have a beautiful home to live in. I have fresh food and water to eat and drink. I am almost thirty and healthy in body and mind. Yes, I may want an updated wardrobe or neighbors that weren’t living so close to us, but that’s just “icing on the cake.” They are wants and not necessities. How did I get here? Was it hard? Was I ridiculed? Yes…but that is, unfortunately, what it takes today when you choose to be good.
I spent most of my time in school refusing sexual advances, avoiding physical fights, and not attending parties where I knew that drugs might be involved. Instead, I spent my waking moments attentively in the classroom, ferociously reading at home, and eventually finding school friends whom I could readily learn with and be around. Once I graduated, I found myself in my first normal nine-to-five job as a receptionist. And that is when my moral choices became more complex. After the first year or so, I began to get fidgety, then I started to resent my job. I felt like I woke up there and fell asleep there most days, especially on those cold, dark winter months… I learned the ins and outs of the job by that point and I needed to move on. I should have moved on earlier, but the “golden handcuffs” of the money were on. So, I began to search out innocuous things on the internet at work when no one needed my assistance. I started with taking typing tests and then searching for other types of work, all reasonable things, in my mind, to look up within the framework of my receptionist job. I was making myself better for the job at hand—continuous training, I told myself. But then I landed on the idea of transcript proofreading from home. From home…oh how I missed my haven of books and culture and not having a long commute shoved in a public bus with everyone else who worked in the city. I stayed sardine-shaped at work, my spine poking out through the skin to shield myself from the outside world.
Soon enough, I was sitting at my desk in another place entirely. I was no longer just the receptionist but a proofreader-in-training. Whenever my time was freed up, I was on their computer taking tests, learning about frequently confused homophones and transposed words. I printed off pages to work from since I didn’t have a printer at home. But the slope got more slippery in my head. I faked smiles and laughs and worked just enough to squeak by. And then I began to feel guilty. I was now having to make choices that left me either feeling used by the company or ashamed. These were some of my thoughts (see if you recognize some of these daily compromises you make in your job): Well, my boss didn’t tell me I’d have to stay this late, so I deserve the ten cents worth of paper. Or, this client on the phone was angry with me for no reason, so I should get an extra five minutes to eat my lunch today. Or, X always gets in late, so I’m going to arrive late just for today. And these kinds of calculations were constant. It was as if I was on this endless tightrope between making moral and immoral choices. Their policy was clear about not doing personal work during business hours, which probably included taking their paid-for paper and ink, taking extra time off, and arriving late. I knew what I was doing, but my own unhappiness made things seem even…fair.
I should have left earlier than I did, but I waited until I finished the proofreading program and started building up my business so that I no longer had to make tough and often poor moral decisions every day that I could feel were progressively eating away at my soul. I missed feeling the simplicity of just saying no to things in school and then following the schedule that was set by my parent and teachers. I no longer had that option. Life as an adult was my own, and I needed to spend my time wisely, make up my own schedule, and end up a lot happier than I was feeling in those days. As soon as I had a few clients under my belt, I resigned from my position.
Not everyone needs to quit their jobs and work for themselves. I’m sure there are plenty of people who love their jobs and are challenged enough on a daily basis to not start feeling resentful. But the moral degrees game, I believe, is very present in the “corporate world” today. Thankfully, when we do not cloud our emotions with drugs or alcohol, we have an easier time getting a clue about what we are doing—not only to the company we may work for but to ourselves. If you feel bad at the end of the day, then how have you spent it? Have you made compromises all day that only attacked your self-esteem and, thereby, your long-term happiness?
We are not static creatures. Every day we make moral choices, but we can make them easier or harder to choose. For instance, brushing your teeth comes automatically now since we’ve been doing it since childhood. Yet, it is an act of choosing life. You are taking care of your oral health to live another day healthy on earth. You have the option to skip it and risk cavities and all the deterioration of the body that follows, but that by definition is immoral since Ayn Rand states that “Life or death is man’s only fundamental alternative. To live is his basic act of choice. If he chooses to live, then a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course” (Philosophy: Who Needs It?). A dead man doesn’t need morality.
So was I behaving poorly in my receptionist job? Toward the end, I would say yes, I did immoral things. However, it was the good, moral choice that made me resign and not continue to suck off the money teat forever while just giving the minimum of my efforts to my job. I regained the tarnished bits of my self-esteem by leaving and venturing off on my own. Do I make “easy” money now? No. Do I make as much money yet? No. But am I happier? Yes. Am I still perfect after learning from such an experience? Yes.
We all live atop the scales of justice until our final breath is taken. There are days we will make mistakes and there will be repercussions. But we must have the courage to address the emotions that come with an immoral decision in order to be good. Clouding, hiding, submerging those feelings and the reality of the situation, which, sadly, so many adults do who don’t understand the way out, can only lead to the destruction of the soul. Bad, immoral, imperfect people are those who know that what they do makes them feel awful, they may even know it is immoral, and continue to do it anyway—in the face of reality. They refuse to change when all evidence suggests they must do so to continue living. They begin to become walking billboards for death, not life. Forget brushing my teeth, forget clocking into work on time, forget keeping my child fed, forget that the gun is going off into an innocent person’s body because life has no meaning for me. I am the absence of life now; I am death. It is not an irrational spiral that stirs people on the outside to shout “Madman!” It is a man who has lost his sense of morality and progressively allows the disease to weaken his values down to dust.
I believe that most people are good, perfect beings who would benefit from more of a culture that advocates paying attention to our emotions—not hiding them. They can oftentimes help detect a bad decision before reason can come in to explain. Books, especially literary fiction, are also saviors for their honest look into people’s good and bad decisions and the outcomes they face from them. I believe that morality can be learned and a good, perfect person should be open to its serious study. They will learn that there are varying degrees of values on a person’s set of priorities, and the more attuned they are to them, the happier they will be with a clearer vision of their goals in life. Perfection is all about making mistakes and learning from them. That struggle to understand cause and effect is what makes man quintessentially human.
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Links: http://www.aynrandlexicon.com; https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Who-Needs-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451138937
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Views Expressed Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent the postings, strategies, or opinions of American Wordsmith, LLC. Please also know that while I consider myself an Objectivist and my work is inspired by Objectivism, it is not nor should it be considered Objectivist since I am not the creator of the philosophy. For more information about Ayn Rand’s philosophy visit: aynrand.org.