h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just want to say a thing or two about ethics. My own ethical system is strict: I hold myself to high standards. The core of my ethics is love for all people and all living things. Also respect. I believe in treating others with the respect with which you would wish yourself to be treated. Respect, and consideration. Really think about how the other person thinks and feels. Every other person is, so I believe, an entire universe in him/her/itself. This is something worth respecting. But it goes for oneself as well. You must love and respect yourself also. This is your benchmark for loving and respecting others, after all. Try and set this mark as high as possible.

I believe ethics is strength. Doing the right thing opens up better opportunities than doing the wrong thing. Evil and injustice paints you into a corner - you cannot prosper forever by doing wrong. You can get ahead, you can gain some advantage, but at some time it will come back and bite you. I do believe that even if a person seems to 'get away' with wrong things - stealing, cheating, manipulating, deceiving - the person doesn't really benefit. S/he might get rich and outwardly 'successful' but I am convinced such a person's soul suffers. In this life, already. Doing what is wrong means you can enjoy your ill-gotten gains but only in your own little universe ... you cut yourself off from others by mistreating them and viewing them in a negative way.

But if you love, and if you view and treat others generously, you enlarge your own universe. You link it up with other universes ... you see and experience things from the perspective of others, adding them to yours - and so your universe (and your soul) grows.

Love, kindness, compassion and gentleness is not weakness but strength. I believe in these things as powerfully motivational values. When you love and care it moves you to do things. For others, and also for yourself. The more you care, the more you get active. You have goals - you want to achieve good things for yourself and also for others. You see to harmonize and reconcile people, viewpoints ... and all of this helps with growth, growth of your mind, your soul. Your view expands, you become broadminded. Not in a fluffy woolly way: when you care, you care also for truth. You cannot have love without truth: you have to find out what is right, because if you are wrong it causes harm. If you have a problem, you have to understand it and know what to do about it - and what you do about it has to be the right thing - if it is the wrong thing, at best it will not help and at worst it will actually harm. If you care, then you wish to cause no harm. You have to know what is helpful and what is harmful! You have to remain ever vigilant, you have to perpetually try and seek out the truth, the REAL truth! We live in a world where there are too many people pushing 'fake' truths ... sometimes they outright want to deceive people, sometimes they themselves are deceived, but in all cases, it doesn't help anyone.

So you must use your heart - but you must also use your mind! You mustn't fall for other people's lies, and also you mustn't lie to yourself. The stakes are very, very high! The universe - the totality of universes - all of which are wonderful - are at stake. They always will be! For every person life offers incredible opportunities ... but also incredible risks. Ethics will help you navigate your path in life.