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Do the Right Thing

MANY YEARS AGO I attended a workshop on choice-based living in which the lecturer talked about how we can improve our sense of efficacy in life by “making decisions, big or small, in good conscience.” After the session I asked him to clarify what he specifically meant by that. “The bottom line is that when you are choosing one course of action over another in life, always do the right thing,” he said. “‘The right thing,’” he continued, “is subject to individual interpretation, which is why you should let your conscience be your guide.” Within the context of regrets, then, the definition of “the right thing” is perhaps best articulated as “the choice you won’t regret.”

Two people that have further stimulated my thinking around this topic are Nicole and Matt Benak. Not long after they had their first two children, a girl and a boy, the Benaks adopted a baby girl from Ethiopia. To their surprise, some of their friends couldn’t imagine why they had chosen to adopt when seemingly they could just have more children on their own. This feedback was especially difficult for Nicole and Matt to absorb since they felt strong in their belief that they were doing the right thing for their family as well as for the baby in this case.

“We felt so incredibly blessed to be able to make this little girl a part of our family,” Matt reflected. “Plus, when you realize that there are literally millions of orphan children throughout Africa as well as in other parts of the world, it just makes the decision to adopt an easy one for us.”

Nicole added, “For us to bring another child into the world when there are so many children who are in dire need of a family seems like a choice that we would have regretted. We adopted our child because for us personally, it was the right thing to do and ultimately a win-win decision for all of us. In other words, as able and willing parents we were ready to expand our family, and by the same token, this orphan child needed a home and a loving family who wanted to take care of her.”

A year later Nicole and Matt decided to adopt another child from the same agency in Ethiopia, this time a five-year-old boy.

The Benaks are not only an inspiration but also an example of how doing the right thing can be grounded in the principle of making choices in good conscience. As such, their choices are ones they won’t soon regret.

Doing the right thing is about being able to live with your decisions in every part of your life. When faced with choosing one course of action over another, use your conscience as a guide. Ensure that your decision is one that you’ll feel proud of and can readily stand behind. When you do the right thing, you’ll never regret what you’ve done.

When you do the right thing,
you’ll never regret what
you’ve done.

∼ What is an example of when doing the right thing was not an easy decision for you?

∼ What made the decision difficult?