What if Everyone Did Their Duty?

The moral obligations in our lives are not spelled out for us. That makes them easy to ignore or put off doing.

Duty is a topic that many people don’t talk about much anymore. Most of the time when people think about Duty they think about the things that they have been assigned to do. The idea that Duty is a job description or something we are expected to do at home is a limited definition of Duty.

In our world today, the idea of people doing their Duty needs to take us beyond those limits. We need to consider the moral obligations we have – to our teams, our families and to our society as a whole.

One of the ways we should start thinking about our moral obligations is to consider what we “ought to do.” With this idea in mind, our Duty suddenly expands. We start to realize that we fall short daily. I know for me, I ought to:

● Check in with a friend I haven’t heard from for a while.

● Listen to my wife when she needs to have a conversation even if I am tired.

● Call members of my team that work remotely on a regular basis.

● Finish the project I’ve left half done and laying around the house.

● Take time to help a stranger in the Walmart parking lot.

● Speak out about an injustice I see happen in front of my eyes.