What Matters Most............Commentary by Jim High
President Obama’s first few months in office and his trips around the world, if they show us anything, show us the power, correctness and justice of always doing the right thing. It is amazing to see the reactions of people all around the world to this man who has set out to transform the world by always just doing the right thing.
No matter what the issue, be it in government, business, community, family relations, religion, or just within your close circle of friends, doing the right thing is always the thing to do. Sometimes this is hard and many times people refrain from doing the right thing because it means change, or it might make someone mad, or upset some group or person with different opinions.
I watched President Obama answer questions at the Press Conference at the conclusion of his trip to the 34 nation Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago a couple of weeks ago. A reporter tried to ask him a difficult question by saying that didn’t he worry about how his efforts and his words would be taken back home by certain groups. President Obama said, yes people would be certain to try to make something political out of his efforts, but that he did not worry about the politics of it because he was convinced that he was doing the right thing, and that the vast majority of Americans had voted for him so that he could change, not only the policies of United States, but the relationships between all the nations of the world, by starting to do the right thing.
Let me be clear, doing the right thing is not just one person’s opinion of what should be done. The right thing is not the Democratic or Republican thing to do. The right thing is not the Baptist, Jewish, Islamic, Methodist or Catholic opinion. The right thing has no liberal or conservative side. The right thing has no relationship with the rich and powerful, or for the poor and disadvantaged.
So how do you know what the right thing is? The right thing is what works to help all people. It is what is fair to all people. It is what provides justice for all people. It is what comes from and is motivated by love, care and concern for all people. It is not easy to get yourself to the point of knowing what the right thing is, because most of us have lived for so long doing the wrong thing, thinking only of our own needs, following a policy of more for me and to hell with everyone else. Doing the right thing can put you in a very strange feeling place.
But President Obama starts out with a clear idea and statement of the end result that will make real change and create benefits for everyone, and then he begins to make decisions that move in the direction of the goal that everyone wants because it truly benefits everyone. That is what doing the right thing is all about. It is thinking of the needs and concerns of everyone and working in cooperation with everyone for the common good of everyone.
What matters most is that each of us deep down inside knows the right thing to do. As little children we are born with the spirit of love, care and concern for others built into who we are as human beings. So as adults our job is to dig down deep inside and judge all our actions and relations with others by the standard of just doing the right thing. I believe that we all intuitively know how to do that. Always doing the right thing is the next stage of evolution that the whole world is moving toward for the benefit of humankind everywhere.
© 2009#4 Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467
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