
Because we owe them something
By admin on Dec 17, 2009 No Comments »From the time we were kids we’ve heard that we have duties and obligations to honor and fulfill. Over the course of a lifetime, those duties and obligations change for most of us and become more complex and difficult to embrace. Contrary to what some people think, the words duty and obligation are not synonymous. Rather, a duty is an internally compelling motive to act while an obligation is an externally compelling motive to act. For example, we know it’s our duty to care for our families, but we see working late to meet a deadline as an obligation. These are simple comparisons, but having made the point, I’d like to talk about the deeper, more persuasive aspects of our duties and obligations that affect us as a society, influencing our behavior towards others as we try to make this a better world. In this sense we have both duties and obligations and President Obama brought the idea home beautifully in his election night speech when he said:
“…We cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together. We may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction—towards a better future…”.
Everyone...
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