There Is No Right Way to Do a Wrong Thing

Whether we know it or not, whether we recognize it of not, it is still, and always, happiness that we pursue. But with shortsighted decisions or thoughtless acts of words, sometimes we seem to clutter and confuse our lives—so much so that others wonder how we could.

The mistakes of others may seem plain to us, especially after they have made them. But our own mistakes don’t always seem so plain, at least not before the moment of making them. But they may seem plain soon. And a constant question of those who find themselves in difficulty is this: “Why did I do it?” And the frequent cry is this: “I don’t know why I did it.”

Our failures are not planned. We don’t deliberately set out to make ourselves miserable. We don’t deliberately seek unhappiness. But we do sometimes set our hearts on things we shouldn’t.

We do sometimes run after the wrong things—or run after the right things in the wrong way. We take chances and cut corners, and ignore the warning signs, the warning sense within us. We are entitled to guidance in many ways, and we do (or can) have promptings, impressions that we should learn to look for and not ignore.

This sentence commends itself for sincere consideration: “There is no right way to do a wrong thing” – and this we well would remember whenever we are tempted to cut corners or to set safe standards aside. There is no right way to do a wrong thing.

Sometimes we may think we see an acceptable shortcut. Sometimes we see others who seem to have found what they want (or what we want) by traveling a wrong road. But if we think so, it is simply because we don’t know enough; because we haven’t seen the end; because we don’t know all the answers; because we don’t know how they feel or how we would feel if we did what we shouldn’t do.

We cannot be sure that others have what they seem to have. We cannot fully know the price that other men pay. We cannot fully know the peace (or accusation) that others have inside themselves. But no matter what anyone else seems to have (and no matter what we ourselves have of don’t have), this we can count on: “There is no right way to do a wrong thing.”