Three Guidelines for Ethical Living

What My Daughter Taught Me

By: Kenneth P. Langer

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Is it possible to be ethical without being religious? For a very long time, moral training was always a part of religious teaching. The idea was that the spiritual life meant not only knowing the divine but living out its principles. Soon moral and religious teaching became intertwined to the point that people believed a lack of spiritual training also meant a lack of moral development. But, ethics does not have to be relegated to the exclusive domain of the church, mosque, or synagogue. We can learn to live well together simply because we all want to coexist in a peaceful and kind world. When my daughter was born I wanted to give her the chance to seek out her own spiritual path but with a moral compass that she could take with her. I searched for something simple yet capable of growing and developing as she did. Comparing different traditions I came up with three words. They are small words, simple words, yet they are capable of great shades of meaning and subtlety and, together, can provide a lifetime of guidance and direction.