Chapter Twelve
The Bottom Line
Ethical values are child’s play, not rocket science.
Society is forever fondly remembering the past as the “good old days,” a warm, fuzzy recollection of the simpler, happier times of our youth. Nostalgia tends to be vague and selective. Truth be known, those times had their ups and downs, just like today, but, again, childhoods normally are less complex. Back then, we accepted plainspoken values and, for the most part, adhered to them. These norms were drilled into our heads by the adults who surrounded us. Their diligence influenced our behavior, just as we shaped the behavior of our children, and they of their offspring.
My intention in discussing these ageless values is to jog memories and to flip on light bulbs. There is little in this book that is original. Moral values are nothing new to any generation or culture.
These principles are ingrained in us from birth. Society’s elders frequently view the younger generation as possessing fewer values than they have, but the fact is we all started the same. Each generation has unique challenges; no generation has a monopoly on values.
Although it may appear that the young people today are more inclined to cheat, they also are more tolerant of others than their parents. If they seem less inclined to paint morality in the stark blacks and whites, they also are less interested in making a million dollars and are more concerned about the condition of the earth 50 years from now. In sum and in retrospect, when it comes to values, each generation probably stacks up about even with the generation it succeeded and will precede it.
As an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, I joined Sigma Chi. This fraternity was founded in 1855 when six students at Miami of Ohio University broke away from another fraternity over what they felt was improper behavior. As a Sigma Chi member, I pledged to uphold a credo of fairness, decency, and good manners.
I have never forgotten that promise. The “Jordan Standard,” named for one of those six founders 150 years ago, insists each member, among other things, be of good and moral character and maintain the highest standards of honor and personal responsibility.
Such standards of proper behavior can be universally applied. No matter the faith, the culture, or the age, the natural goodness of human beings must be central to our dealings with one another.
There is an absolute requirement today to awaken in ourselves the basic values that help us determine right from wrong. I use the term awaken because our ethical values have been within us from the beginning, having been infused into our very beings by those who influenced us as youngsters.
We followed unwritten rules for the playgrounds and sandlots, homes, and schools. We honored basic fairness, decency, respect, and integrity. These principles do not change when we migrate from boxes full of sand to buildings full of desks. Then as today, we must conduct ourselves with honor and fairness.
It’s easy to keep a bargain or to honor a contract when it works in your favor. The measure of the individual is when his or her word is kept even when it puts the person at a disadvantage.
Tough times are never easy to manage. They often require a dramatic change of lifestyle. During a financial crisis, we must not only eliminate luxury and discretionary spending, we many times must curtail purchases of basic commodities—fuel, food, clothing. A planned purchase of a new house or car is back-burnered.
As a Jewish proverb points out, “He who can’t endure the bad will not live to see the good.” Financial setbacks usually pass. As another old saying goes, being poor is a state of mind; not having money is a temporary condition.
Notwithstanding the fact that a financial crisis can stretch ethical limits, for many others it can also push physical limits. For example, one ramification from financial worry is stress, a condition that can play havoc on the entire body. Stress walks hand in glove with financial worries. Hard times come in many forms and of varying durations. Some never seem to abate, stubbornly persisting, spreading heavy doses of sadness to all corners of our lives.
Take heart, philosophers tell us, for “this, too, shall pass away.” At times, that doesn’t seem possible, but try to remain positive and be surprised. Francis of Assisi told us: “Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
As founder and chairman of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, I speak frequently with many cancer patients from around the world. I meet regularly with our staff of more than 1,600 scientists, researchers, clinicians, and staff members to discuss the disease and its ramifications. I have noticed that worry, stress, loneliness, and anxiety are key factors that not only have exacerbated cancer but often have prolonged the disease. On the other hand, joy, friendship, encouragement, and uplifting feelings have had a positive way of shortening cancer’s duration and hastening remission.
When thinking of cancer, it helps to recall the soothing verse from Ecclesiastes: “To everything there is a season; a time for every purpose under heaven.… A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to dance and a time to mourn.” During episodes with cancer, it is, figuratively speaking, a time to laugh and a time figuratively to dance. It may seem odd, even impossible, but it helps body and spirit to try.
Each human is unique. Each has unique ways in which to heal. Today’s environment is conducive to stress in its many forms—anxiety, obsession, depression. Rising prices bring pressure to maintain certain lifestyles. Unemployment is up. Heath care is unaffordable. We frequently seem to be cash-strapped. More Americans are distraught today than at any time since the Great Depression.
Instead of moping about, we must turn this time into a period of positive reflection, a time for reaching out and helping others.
At the end of the day, isn’t the real concern one of diminished status? And isn’t it more a state of mind than a tangible situation? Assuming we have the basics—food, clothing, shelter—are we not still equipped to go forth and cheerfully help others?
Financial hardship is not the only fallout from bad times. Fear and turmoil are its silent partners. They can grip our soul and become personal hallmarks. They can make us consider doing things we might not otherwise entertain.
When we are fearful and submerged in chaos, we contemplate behavior not in keeping with our values. We, in turn, become fear and turmoil carriers, spreading havoc and heartache to those around us. (The Scrooge character in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol makes the case. I believe we read and watch this story over and over, probably so it won’t happen to us.)
Fear is bondage. I appreciate the well-established axiom because it is so true: We can unwittingly incarcerate ourselves with worry, negativity, and obsessive behavior. To do this is dangerous. It erodes health and spirit. It separates one from family, friends, and colleagues and destroys lasting relationships.
In difficult and challenging times, we must embrace the many positive things in our lives, however small—children and loved ones, flowers and other beauties of nature, the gifts with which we are blessed. Over time, we see that most misfortunes are temporary situations that we perceive at the time as worst-possible scenarios but that turn out to be less permanent or severe than we had forecast.
So how does one bring about the restoration of value-based behavior in the marketplace and in the other arenas of modern life? I offer four simple suggestions, as follows:
When you engage in something that affects others, first ask yourself: Is this right? Would I like to be treated this way?
Take your values to work. Don’t disconnect them when you sit down at your desk. There should not be a conflict between making a profit and adhering to traditional principles of decency and fairness.
Consider yourself your brothers’ and sisters’ keeper and set the example for ethical behavior.
Make the underpinnings of your life a string of f-words (phonetically, at least): family, faith, fortitude, fairness, fidelity, friendship, and philanthropy.
After family and faith, the most important of these attributes ought to be philanthropy. Most of us benefitted from a number of fortuitous breaks in life. Not one of us was truly self-made. We were helped or coached by others along the way. Thus, we have a special obligation to be on the lookout for opportunities to return those favors, or pass them on to others.
There are many causes out there awaiting our generosity. They come in all shapes and sizes. My own cause right now is finding a cure for cancer.
In considering which causes are the most worthwhile for us, look first to the needs in our communities. Put them in a priority that makes sense to you. Where can you do the most good? Where will our giving make a difference? Think it through and do our duty.
For me, the most exhilarating giving of all is based on a spur-of-the-moment impulse—taking the coat off your back for a shivering transient on a wintery street, or an unplanned drop-in at a homeless shelter. The impulse might even come in the middle of a speech, as happened to me a few years ago. I will close with that story.
Hanging on the wall behind my desk is a quote by John Andrew Holmes, a physician who authored Wisdom in Small Doses. It reads: “No exercise is better for the human heart than reaching down and lifting another up.”
That powerful message was at the heart of a university commencement address delivered in 2000. It had to be the shortest graduation speech in modern history. Holmes’ quote was the entire talk!
The commencement ceremony had been underway for nearly an hour and a half, and I had yet to give my prepared remarks. Family and friends were fidgeting in their seats; small children were fussing. The school was one that had a high proportion of older students, married students with families, students who worked full-time jobs for the opportunity to better their lives. They were a practical bunch; so were their parents and friends. Two hours of long-winded speakers was not their idea of a good use of time.
As I sat on the stage taking in all this, I began to mentally whittle my prepared text. By the time I approached the podium, I was down to a single sentence.
I stood before the graduates and asked them to stand. “Repeat after me,” I instructed them. “No exercise…is better for the human heart…than reaching down…and lifting another up.”
I asked them again to recite the 15-word thought.
Then, out of the blue, I did something completely on impulse. I turned to the school’s president and announced that I would provide the university with 200 scholarships of $5,000 each. Then I sat down. You could have heard a pin drop in that events center. Mouths hung open, as if people questioned what they had heard. I could hardly believe what I had just said myself.
What followed was a deafening deluge of shouts, whistles, cheers, and applause. I was overwhelmed by the reaction.
As I absorbed the pandemonium, vivid memories of the long-ago Zellerbach Family Scholarship that made possible my degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School flashed before me. I even thought I could see Harold Zellerbach sitting there in the front row, quietly nodding and wearing one of those “we’re even” smiles.
What a high! Try it. I guarantee you’ll like it.