JUST A MOMENT: BUTTONS NOT PUSHED
I stopped at a GET GO Gas Station store the other day to buy a Mega Millions and Power Ball lottery ticket, so I could obviously share with family and the world wide extended family to make the world a better place (Just like everyone else, right?)
The man in front of me was in a hurry. He finished his transaction, grabbed his tickets, and hurried out the door.
But he forgot one thing.
He left $18 sitting in the lottery machine.
All I had to do was touch a couple of buttons, choose my numbers, and those eighteen dollars would have become my lottery tickets.
No one would have known.
For just a moment, my mind entertained the thought.
Was this one of those mysterious gifts from the universe? Had fortune simply smiled on me? Or was I standing in front of someone else’s loss, trying to convince myself it was my gain?
I called the clerk’s attention to it.
She didn’t seem particularly interested. There wasn’t much guidance about what to do next. I simply said, “I think it would be bad juju to play on that man’s behalf.”
Maybe that’s not a theological statement.
Maybe it’s just another way of saying I don’t believe my blessings are supposed to come wrapped in someone else’s forgetfulness.
Life presents these moments more often than we realize.
An overpayment.
An unnoticed mistake.
A forgotten wallet.
An opportunity that belongs to someone else.
Our moral compass isn’t usually tested in dramatic moments. It’s tested in quiet ones…when we’re just one button away from benefiting from another person’s loss.
I never found out if the man came back, or just what the clerk did with now her ethical dilemma and her twirling, set in motion moral compass. . .
But I do know this:
Some things are worth far more than eighteen dollars.
Just a moment…
Perhaps integrity is choosing to sleep well at night rather than wondering if our good fortune was built on someone else’s bad day.
For a split second, my mind did what all of our minds do.
“Well…maybe this is my lucky day.”
Is this a gift?
A blessing?
A reward?
Or is it simply someone else’s forgetfulness?
Funny how quickly life can hand us these tiny ethical crossroads. They rarely arrive with dramatic music or flashing warning lights. More often, they show up as loose change on a counter, too much change from a cashier, an extra item in a delivery box, or money someone accidentally leaves behind.
The real question isn’t, “Can I get away with this?”
It’s, “Who do I become if I do?”
Our character is shaped far more by the small decisions no one else notices than by the grand gestures everyone applauds.
Is this an ethical delema to be fought; a moral compass with a gyroscope gone amok?
Maybe, just maybe integrity is one of the few treasures that never grows by taking what belongs to someone else.
Just a moment. . .
Perhaps the greatest measure of our moral compass isn’t how we handle our own success, but how we respond when someone else’s loss unexpectedly becomes our opportunity.
And maybe this is the biggest question of all that speaks of your own moral compass and ethical dilemma:
WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?
IN JUST A MOMENT. . .You absolutely would know (and maybe everyone else would, too?)