A Guide To Ethical Living
Ethical living is the development of the right attitude that influences ideas and decision making processes in accordance with ethics and moral values. Ethical living is particularly concerned with maintaining the right principles in regard to environmental cases, consumerism, and animal welfare. Presently it is more of a personal initiative rather than an organized social movement. Ethical living is a development of sustainable living where an individual starts by taking a series of small lifestyle changes with the aim of reducing their general effect on the environment. Deciding to start living ethically is as easy as beginning to switch off electric lights or plugging off electrical appliances like the television when leaving a room, recycling products that do not decompose like paper bags, using public means of transport rather than personal vehicles, and even using environment friendly modes of transport for example a bicycle. It may also involve buying local organic produce and even going a step further to re-use waste water. With the popularity of ethical living gaining momentum, various environmental movements propose that the duty of ethical practice be enforced on large businesses which include production firms and multinational corporations. They base their argument on the fact that individual lifestyle changes have less significant effects to the environment than changes caused by the large corporations and industries if they decide to operate ethically.
In general terms an individual or a multinational corporation which decides to live or operate ethically needs not to incur any extra monetary cost or employ any form of extra physical effort to practice it. Living or practicing an environment-friendly activity or in other terms living ethically should be encouraged and both governmental and voluntary groups should come up with ways of educating and advising the society on how and why they should practice the virtue of ethical living. The following is an ethical living action plan whose ideas and recommendations, if adhered to, will make ethical living a reality.
A good population if not all people should learn and practice vegetarianism. From health statistics, it is estimated that sixty to seventy percent of almost all diseases and approximately a third of most cancers are connected to diet. This notion and the wish to live ethically have attracted different individuals to vegetarianism although others have diverse reasons to be vegetarians. Most of the individuals are perceived to be vegetarians so as to live longer or sustain healthy lives and perhaps perform their part in reducing pollution. Others make the move with the wish to protect the Earth’s natural resources while others are morally opposed to consuming animals. Scientific analyses have proved numerous advantages linked to a plant based diet plan and in fact, advice the majority of the population to eat calories through fruits, vegetables and grain products. They continue to argue that vegetarians have very low chances of contracting long term degenerative diseases such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and particular kinds of cancer which include; colon, breast, lung and stomach cancer. A good number of vegetarians have acknowledged the destruction the meat business is bringing to our environment. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approximately 174,000 miles of contaminated rivers come from chemicals and animal waste products from factories. Livestock farming activities that that also pollute the environment include waste from enclosed animal activities and pesticide spraying. Another advantage of people going vegetarians is that all the grain generated and meant to feed animals for slaughter is going to benefit the vast population of human beings and in so doing save them the cost treating the many diseases associated with animal products. Finally the population is going to save a considerable amount of money spent on treating diseases resulting from food borne illnesses resulting from the consumption of food reach in proteins like fish, poultry and meat. In essence vegetarianism is a vital practice to individuals who wish to live ethically.
Another strategy in achieving ethical living is by coming up with successful home based business. Ordinary individuals who have never thought of becoming entrepreneurs are highly advised to use a successful home based business to be able to if possible compete with the chief executive officers in the leading companies and other multi-millionaires. The first role to play in building a successive home based business is opting for a legitimate home based business to start with and come up with an attainable competitive advantage. For instance learning new skills and being able to access upper edge technologies and systems at your reach for example the web site for marketing will be advantageous. An individual with the tools for doing business, systems and technology in place, he or she can comfortably copy and master the marketing strategies of all successful businessmen globally and in fact come up with other methods of transacting business most marketers know nothing about to come up with a successful home based business. The major problem comes with the majority of individuals spending a lot of time searching for a business instead of taking the first step to start one however below are the major requirements in building a successful home based business; to begin with one need to have a lawful ethical business with a products that have stand alone value and a compensation plan that can give a worthwhile money making prospect. Secondly an individual need to have privileged information to understand the essential marketing principles. Third and most important the person must have an established marketing system that will heavy lift your business. Finally the individual ought to have a qualified coach and mentor to inculcate him on the smart marketing and direct him through the process. Because of the above mentioned strategies, home based business industry is rapidly growing with incredible wealth opportunities for all persons bold enough to grasp the moment and take action.
People and the society as a whole should learn to buy homegrown products. This exercise however must not be treated as an issue of advocating for racism in pretence of living ethically but allows an individual to watch those products that are miles and miles away. For instance, an individual residing in the United Kingdom buying a lamb from New Zealand thousands of miles away comes with a lot of environmental hazards that can be done away with by simply buying one locally. The fumes from the vehicle transporting the lamb will definitely pollute the environment all the way depriving the innocent population the fresh air they dearly need. The loud noise from the very vehicle will pollute the otherwise serene environment in the country sides as it traverses through and considering the distance, millions of people will be affected by the lone desire of an individual who had an alternative of buying the same lamb locally. Individuals especially those on holidays should be advised to spend their vacations at home rather than flying abroad. I believe this option will save them the money and the stress associated with such endeavors and in so doing save the planet from undesired climatic changes.
Individuals should learn and practice buying fair-trade goods. Among the goods that can be fair-traded include wine, rice ice cream, honey, cereals tea, bananas, chocolate and even beer and always remember that they must have the Fair-trade logo. The logo simply indicate that the products have met the required standards in that all the people involved in the chain of production have toiled in logical conditions for reasonable pay and hence “fair-trade”. Not that these products are any expensive compared to the top brands but the money realized from the sale of these products goes the poverty ridden people. It is therefore not like giving money to charity because these people have worked for it rather than beg and therefore they are accorded dignity as well.
People should learn to live like the ancient Shaolin monks of China who possessed very little but lived a rich life. Despite the harsh and extreme martial art system they trained and the meditation they undertook, these people had extremely few belongings, practiced vegetarian diet and were so keen not to waste any of their natural resources. Today people are advised to donate clothing and other domestic items that are not in use to those in need, maintain a basic essential wardrobe that is suitable for all social events and keep away from up-to-the-minute clothing. Their spending desires should be limited as much as possible and finally to sustain the economy, people are advised to buy food and clothing to those in need and cannot afford them.
Another applicable and easier way of living ethically is by using compost. Individuals should buy the cheap and the easy to manage compost bins to deal with the compostable leftover food scraps. If this alternative is not applicable people should give the food scraps to community organizations that can make use of them.
The final work plan I am going to suggest is the recycling used water for other appropriate use. For example sink water can be reused to wash floors, the car, flush the toilet or to irrigate the garden. If your dishwasher cleans the dishes thoroughly then skip the pre-rinse procedure to save on water. It is also wise to have a full load for you to do laundry.
Conclusion
This research article has in details expounded on the various applicable choices an individual can practice in order to live ethically. The article has detailed the vast advantages of practicing vegetarianism among them avoiding diseases associated with animal products. The article has also implored on why and how to build a successful home based business other than advocating for persons to buy home grown products. The research article has also campaign for people to buy Fair trade products, advised people to learn and practice living with less assets, come with easy to manage compost giving an alternative to it and finally the article has mentioned the various ways of recycling water.
