When I was a kid playing sports, there were no clubs, travel teams, or private coaches. Except for summer baseball leagues, the primary place to play was high school. When I was in the 10th grade, I wanted to play basketball in the worst way. Unfortunately, given my size and talent, that’s how I played. But in those days, sports …
COMMENTARY 982.2: The Yuppie Lifestyle and Satisfaction
T.S. Eliot said, “Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They do not mean to do harm … they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” How do we feel important? Often, it’s by trying to obtain an image of success created by a …
COMMENTARY 982.1: Do a Little More
In 1964, a young woman named Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death outside her apartment building in Queens, New York. She was attacked repeatedly over the course of an hour and despite her screams, none of the 38 neighbors intervened or called for help. Some were afraid. Some didn’t want to get involved. Some thought someone else would do it. …
COMMENTARY: The Disease of Low Expectations
The serious damage done to our economy, social institutions, and personal relationships by widespread cheating and dishonesty is bad enough. But widespread acceptance of such behavior as inevitable threatens to make our future a lot worse. In effect, our culture is being infected by a disease: the disease of low expectations.
COMMENTARY 981.4: I Owe It to My Family
An angry woman once approached me after a speech to tell me off. “It’s easy for you to talk about my responsibility to speak out or object to waste or wrongdoing,” she said, “but I’m a single mother and my highest duty is to keep my job. If that means occasionally looking the other way, so be it. You have …
COMMENTARY: Fixing Toxic Relationships
Are there people in your life who regularly cause you to feel bad about yourself? Most of us care what others think of us, so knowing that someone doesn’t like or approve of the judgments we’ve made or how we look can be hurtful.
COMMENTARY: The Illusion of Success
Reach for the stars. Pursue goals beyond your grasp. These are good life strategies. We never know how much we can accomplish until we try. But what happens when we’re told we must reach the stars or suffer consequences? A common workplace strategy to spur employee achievement is to set aggressive productivity objectives that, like mechanical rabbits that lead racing …
COMMENTARY: Getting Started
Chris’s parents were proud of him when he graduated from college. But it’s been six months and he hasn’t gotten a job yet. In fact, he hasn’t looked seriously. He has no idea what he wants to do and he’s thinking of grad school. He’s living at home with his parents and things are getting tense, especially with his father, …
COMMENTARY 980.5: Blessing or Curse?
A man and his companion lost their way in a forest. The companion despaired, but the man said maybe some good would come of it. They came upon a stranger who needed the man’s help. The stranger turned out to be a prince who gave the man a beautiful horse. His neighbors praised his good luck and said, “How blessed …
COMMENTARY: Controlling the Weather
While teachers can have a lifelong effect on the way students think, psychologist Haim Ginott has focused on a more immediate aspect of impact: the creation of a positive or negative physical and emotional environment that can determine the quality of a child’s life. “I’ve come to a frightening conclusion,” he said. “I am the decisive element in the classroom. …
COMMENTARY 980.3: The TEAM Approach to Teaching Character
I want my kids to be smart and successful, but I also want them to be good. I want them to be the kind of people other parents would like to see their kids marry. I also want them to make sound, values-based decisions that will help them be safe and happy. So, like most parents, I spend lots time …
COMMENTARY 980.2: Family Values
Our values — the core beliefs that drive behavior — determine our character, our ethics and our potential. Thus, the most important thing we can do for our children is to stimulate them to develop positive values that will help them become wise, happy and good. This is no simple matter. The first step is to achieve greater clarity about …
COMMENTARY 980.1: Who Am I to Judge? – The Ethics of Moral Judgments
Almost every week someone indignantly attacks my integrity because I offended them with a real or perceived opinion they didn’t like. The underlying assumption is that stating an opinion on any controversial matter violates the sacred duty of neutrality. First, I’m a teacher and a commentator, not a judge or journalist. Although I strive mightily to be objective, I don’t …
COMMENTARY: Appreciating Appreciation
There’s a song called “Thank God for Dirty Dishes” that makes the point that if you’re lucky to have enough food to make dirty dishes, you should be grateful.
COMMENTARY: Teaching Our Children to Be Better Than Us
Do parents have moral standing to impose standards on their children that they themselves did not follow when they were kids? Is it ever ethical for parents to lie
COMMENTARY: What Do You Want to See More of and Less of?
COMMENTARY: What Do You Want to See More of and Less of? Inspirational author and speaker Stephen Covey once said, “Start with the end in mind.” So whenever a company wants to launch an ethics initiative, we at Josephson Institute use a simple exercise: “Look at your organization today – its managers, line employees, and customers – and list behaviors …
COMMENTARY: Learning and Believing
One of the marks of our species is our limitless capacity to learn. Sometimes we learn how to do something we’ve never done before. Sometimes we learn facts about the world, about other people, and about ourselves.
COMMENTARY 979.1: Surviving Grief and Tragedy — The Spark Within
Here’s the bad news: Virtue isn’t a golden ticket to a pain-free life. Bad things happen to good people as often as they happen to bad people. It seems unfair, but in the natural order of the world, suffering is random. To expect otherwise is to sentence oneself to despondency, disillusionment, bitterness, and anger. Here’s the good news: The magic power that …
COMMENTARY 978.5: Understanding Change: The Elephant and the Rider
It took me a long time to realize the limitations of logic. For much of my life, including a 20-year stint as a law professor, I relied on discourse and reasoning to understand and resolve problems. I believed that I should suppress feelings that could result in irrational behavior, and I had little patience for those who seemed to govern …
COMMENTARY 978.4: The Parable of the Carpenter
A master carpenter who had worked for the same builder for nearly 50 years announced he was retiring. The builder told him how much he appreciated his work and presented him with a $5,000 bonus. Then he asked if he would build just one more house. He owned a magnificent lot with a spectacular view and wanted to build a …
COMMENTARY 978.3: Curing Victimitis
Watch your thoughts; they lead to attitudes. Watch your attitudes; they lead to words. Watch your words; they lead to actions. Watch your actions; they lead to habits. Watch your habits; they form your character. Watch your character; it determines your destiny. These words of unknown origin tell us that our silent and often subconscious choices shape our future. Every …
COMMENTARY 978.2: Desiderata
In 1927, Max Ehrmann gave us timeless advice in a poem called Desiderata (Latin for “things desired”): Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and …
COMMENTARY 978.1: The Wisdom of Dr. Seuss
Observing the recent birthday of Dr. Seuss caused me to reflect on some of the profound lessons this modern-day philosopher taught with his exotically imaginative stories. For example, whether I’m looking at my clock, my calendar, or observing how quickly my children change, he captures the surprise and wistful sadness I often feel: “How did it get so late so …
COMMENTARY 977.5: Things Are Just Things
Years ago, a listener told me her mom died leaving only a general will and a house full of personal items with sentimental and, in some cases, significant financial value. My listener said tensions were building among her and her two sisters as they approached the problem of allocating their mom’s stuff. Each sister had different and conflicting expectations. The …
COMMENTARY: Coaching for Character
I’ve spent lots of time with some of the world’s most successful coaches. I discovered that many of them think about character a lot, especially traits that are important to winning – like self-discipline, perseverance, resiliency, and courage.
COMMENTARY 977.3: Changing Lives Through Love
Imagine being put in charge of a residential camp for delinquent teenage girls confined because they are considered dangerous. Many have serious mental health issues, impulse control problems, and an awful lot of anger. One of the last terms you’d apply to any of these girls is lovable. So when Pauline Starks and her colleague Gerry Davis (both with more …
COMMENTARY 977.2: Tell Someone They’re Valued
The students at Sandy’s high school were badly shaken by the news that a classmate had killed himself. The suicide note said, “It’s hard to live when nobody cares if you die.” Glen, a teacher, realized this was a teachable moment about the importance of making people feel valued. He asked the class to imagine they were about to die …
COMMENTARY:The Nature and Importance of Integrity
“Sometimes the dues we pay to maintain integrity are pretty high, but the ultimate cost of moral Compromise is much higher.” – Michael Josephson Integrity is often used as a synonym for honesty or even honor but it means much more. The concept of integrity is wholeness, (hence when something is disintegrated it is literally torn apart and disappears). In …
COMMENTARY 977.1: Fleas and Revolutionaries
Positivity is a powerful change agent. For one thing, people who go through life with the positive perspective that the glass is half full are much happier and more productive than those who see it as half empty. It has nothing to do with how much water is really in the glass. What matters is how we think about how …
COMMENTARY 976.5: The True Meaning of Our Lives
I saw a cartoon showing an old king checking in at the gates of heaven. He introduced himself as “Edward The Good.” The gatekeeper with a large book in front of him said, “Well, Eddie, we’ll be the judge of that.” The point is that, in the end, generous self-appraisals won’t matter. Our epitaphs will be written and eulogies delivered …