In Conclusion

Given that all of us taking this Ethics class have had assignments keeping us busy, work keeping us busy, kids keeping us busy, and various other things keeping us busy, I don’t claim to be much more or less busy than my classmates. However, I truly have not had much of an opportunity to break free and spend time reflecting in my natural environment.

That said, I engage in self-reflection during almost every moment of my spare time. Most of the time I spend my commute to and from work sorting out my thoughts, pondering, wondering, making connections among all the ideas I considered, all the people with whom I spoke, all the words that I read, etc. I am reflective by nature. Further, my blogging project for this class and the personal moral system assignment only reinforced my reflection. Spending an hour or two in my natural environment just to reflect on my ethical beliefs would simply be overkill.

Therefore, my “walkabout” occurred mostly in pieces. Often each period of reflection (which usually occurred while posting a blog entry or driving home from work) would lead to a realization or several mini-realizations. For example, a few weeks ago the director of our office underwent a medical procedure for which she will spend the next 4-6 recovering. (She is doing well so far and is expected to recover completely.) As a result, I have assumed many of her decision-making duties and responsibilities. Although somewhat daunting at times, the experience has been tremendously valuable to me, as it has forced me to really think deeply about how my decisions will impact various constituents. Further, it has forced me to put into practice much of what I have learned about leadership from my master’s program.

Probably the most important thing I have realized is that life is dynamic. It’s one thing to spell out a situation on paper, examine it, and then apply the ethical model that I think is most appropriate. However, that is not realistic. In reality, all the dimensions of a situation are constantly changing, and all of the factors related to the scenario make it too difficult to apply, universally, all the elements of any one of the models discussed in the text.