The Right Thing

You will be faced with choices throughout your life.  The hardest of those choices will be doing the right thing, or not.

It is so easy to lash out at someone, if they’ve lashed out at you.

It is so easy to hold a grudge, when one is held against you.

It is so easy to do the thing that is quick, easy, and pleasurable, as opposed to the long, hard grind that will get you where you actually want to go.

This is a lesson you won’t get right all the time.  You will fail to take the high road in every situation because your instincts, like mine, make you take the low road.

And it feels good in the moment, to strike back, to injure those who have injured you.

I’ve done it.  And it felt amazing.  For about a second and a half.

Then you face the consequences of that action.  The worst of which, if you inflict harm on someone else, is living with yourself and understanding what you are capable of.

It’s hard to look in the mirror, when you know you’ve done something you shouldn’t.

It’s hard once you’ve lashed out, to take it back when you are calm.

It’s hard to explain to those who’s perception of you, has been changed forever.

I still to this day have people who I haven’t seen in years come up to me and the thing they remember about me is the worst moment I’ve ever had.

In every situation like this, when doing the easy thing that would feel so good in that moment is the last thing you should do, you have to look for the high road.

I’m not talking about being a martyr, for the benefit of others.  I’m talking about making the choice that will serve you in the long run.

Making the choice to walk away from that useless confrontation, when someone you should pity, suddenly becomes someone you could despise.

There was once, when we were on vacation in Cuba, an incident when our towel was stolen off our chairs.  It was obvious who had done it, the loud obnoxious group next to us.

It would have been easy to confront them angrily, and take the towel back, and it was quite something in the moment to not do that.

But even as I write this, it was a towel.  At a resort.  In Cuba.

So stepping back in the moment, we simply informed the front desk what had happened, and an investigation ensued.

Turns out, we were right.  The staff discovered our extra towel in their rooms, and returned it to us with an apology.

Now I don’t know what happened to that group, as security was there to talk to them about the theft of the towel, and we walked away to let them handle it.

But I do know it was a much better outcome then confronting a drunken local in an angry way that would have probably resulted in a fistfight over a towel.  At a resort.  In Cuba.

You have the choice to behave a certain way in every situation, and nobody expects you to have a perfect record.  Even if you screw up, make the wrong choice and  although you may fall down sometimes, you have to get back up.

Although in some moments it may seem like everything is against you, and it’s easy to get in the mud and roll around with the pigs, you will have the opportunity to take the high road.

Even if that high road is the hard road, just bear one last thought in mind:

Doing the right thing, is always the right thing.