Fair Enough?

Back in 1998 when I was in the second year of college, an incident happened that made me question the benefits of my sticking to my morals and ethics in the midst of the worst crisis. That day the frustration within me came out in the form of few words that had sent shock waves across the senior management. Years later today, I am in a phase where my mind asks me the same question: Is it worth maintaining and living upto your own standards of moral conduct, or should you once in a while cross your self-drawn boundaries and give a sucker punch to teach somebody a lesson? So far I have been successful in sticking to the former, and intend to do so for the time foreseen, because I firmly believe that the strength of your ethics is tested only when the goings are tough and the world pushes you into a corner where you feel like blasting out in anger.

Fortunately, I still have a copy of that letter, that had the same title as the one for this post. Though the context today is completely different and hence the particular words and phrases don't apply, the underlying meaning is so apt even today. Here is the original script:

"This is neither a protest letter nor a piece of paper questioning the righteousness of the decisions imposed. But, as great men say, one should never suppress the strom of emotions rising within one's soul, we found it proper to put our feeling on paper and try to console our minds for the injustice we think has been done to us.

In the history of mankind, there have been numerous instances when the obvious truth was neglected, not to mention, this was one. Man, for his own interest, or to pamper his fake reputation has many a time chosen paths which he himself is not sure if they are worth following or not. It has slowly seeped into the human nature that one hates to look with naked eyes towards the sun which gives a honest light, but adores the sight of the cozy moon which, in fact has not brightness of its own.

For centuries, the people who have shown the wisdom of keeping matters free from troubles at the cost of their own well being, have been taken for granted. Their patience has been mistaken for their cowardice. There are only two possible end results for this. One, unfortunately is that these handful of people become saturated of tolerating evil, lose their patience and put things into chaos. The other one, and the only hope for tomorrow, is that the people in authority wake up from their age old sleep, and show the wits and courage to support the wise in their cause, so that others might also in future take the pains of fighting the wrong in the right manner. The decision whether which path to take, lies in our hands. Whether we want to give our future generations a society which has its foundation on truth and honesty, or one with double standards prevailing everywhere, depends entirely on us."