If We Don't Have Standards…

There is a simple, forthright subject that we would turn to, namely: virtue, honor, chastity; living a clean and honorable life. It has to do with standards, morality, law, and even what we call commandments. Despite the inclination of anyone to minimize them, these are important to a good and happy life. No one has ever proved otherwise, and the tragedy and unhappiness of people personally, and the downfall of immoral, corrupt civilizations offer more proof than anyone would reasonable want.

There is another side of this subject, and that is this: If we don’t have standards, we don’t know how to live life. If we don’t have standards, laws, principles, we don’t know what is or isn’t acceptable, and so we run loose, always in uncertainty, not knowing what or where we are, or what we ought to be, or what is expected of us.

How can we expect a generation to grow up happy, stable, any firmly fixed, if we don’t give them standards? Once we eliminate any standard, principle, any boundary, or guideline in life – once we remove the stars, the compass, the fixed points that give us guidance – we have left ourselves without any way to know where we are or where we are going. And if by misguidance, or lack of guidance, we let a generation of young people feel that it is all right to run morally loose, we shall have lost for them the foundations of goodness, of happiness, of peace and purpose, and that would be a heavy weight for anyone to carry around.

If we want happiness, here and hereafter, we must ourselves live the laws, the commandments, the principles, the standards of cleanliness, chastity, virtue, honesty, honor – must teach them and show them these timeless and eternal truths.

Where would we be without stars, compass, standards, fixed points, guidelines in life?

We come finally to a simple, solid four-word phrase: “…wickedness never was happiness” – not for anyone at all.