How ethical are we....?

Recently there was a news item in the media, which prompted me to think, 'how ethical are we? The news was : A family in Australia received in their bank account $ 10 million, instead of a refund of $ 100. It was a huge mistake by the remitting agency. The beneficiary, instead of reporting it to the relevant authorities, started splashing the money (legally and ethically, not theirs) around. They bought a mansion, gave away costly gifts to friends and relatives and started living a 'princely' life. The mistake was found out by the remitter after 7 months and now the court also confirms that they have to repay the 'wrongly' received amount plus the interest. Is it not 'greed' of the highest order???

We can (with a wild guess) say that at least 95% people are not ethical. Given a chance, even normally ethical people will resort to unethical means. We are not true to ourselves. We should be honest in every walk of life. Even in the absence of any witness to our deeds, we must be honest and ethical. We should never act being honest to show others that we are honest.

There is yet another incident that happened somewhere in India, sometime back. An ATM, due to some error, was dispensing 5 times the amount the withdrawer typed in the console. For example, when someone typed to withdraw Rs. 1,000, the machine (due to some error in the system), dispensed Rs. 5,000. But his account is debited only by Rs. 1,000. A genuine person (very ethical) should have immediately reported this to the concerned bank manager so that the bank corrects the mistake as soon as possible. He should have also informed the security standing there to not allow anyone to withdraw cash for the time being. Instead, the person who withdrew money, informed others as well so that every one started withdrawing money as they were getting 5 times of their rightful money. Even the normally straight-forward person, was tempted to do so. It seems that there was a huge crowd to withdraw money from that particular ATM.

We also see in the news quite often - a van with goodies gets overturned and the goods lay scattered on the road. Immediately we can see hoards of people gathering there to retrieve and take home, whatever is possible. Within minutes the entire lot would have been taken away by the people. Why can the people not help the van driver to gather all the goods and keep them safely so that when the van gets repaired, the goods could be loaded in the van? That is ethical. But does it happen anywhere in the world?

When all of a sudden a riot takes place in a town. What we normally witness is people of all sorts rampaging the stores and taking away costly goods like TV, Refrigerator, Washing machine, Sound system or whatever they can carry. They run off with the loot. We never bother about the loss that would be incurred by the store owner. Is this ethical? Are we the rightful owners of the goods that we steal?

Some professionals in almost all the fields, take to unethical means to gain a few bucks more. Their professional knowledge and status give them an edge over other people.

Why do we indulge in such acts? It is GREED and SELFISHNESS. We should not take anything away from anybody, which is not rightfully ours. Most of us are guilty of such acts. Whether anyone sees our dirty act or not, we should be true to ourselves. 

At the same time, we also see in news that some honest auto-driver retuning very valuable goods, left by mistake by the passenger, to the police station. It is very heartening to note that still some small percentage of people are ethical. They may not be economically strong, but mentally and ethically very strong. Such ethics should be taught in schools and also by the parents, when the children are growing up and seeing the world. The rightful habits should get into their blood right from an young age. Let us try to be ethical...