Could Your Morality Be Holding You Back from Success?

In a world where victors are celebrated, it’s often difficult to say otherwise.

Dream Example Scenario: Imagine you’re attending a job interview for your dream position, but there’s a six-month sabbatical gap on your CV where you were not employed.

Is it morally incomprehensible to lie a little on the dates of your employment to show continuity between job roles?

Most people would say no.

Some may even go as far as to categorise it as a little white lie.

Dream Example Scenario 2: You and one other person in your job are vying for the same promotion.

The other candidate has kids, and you have the choice to fake an emergency call from the school

You can go into the bathroom, pretending there is an emergency at the child’s school. So they rush out and miss the appointment, or you can risk it and not do anything and take your chances.

What do you do?

Probably not that, right?

So, I suppose the question of morality is less black and white and simply falls under the umbrella of what can be justified as being just.

This then leads to the next logical consideration: would the stakes for success just have to be large enough to adjust the defining of one’s morality?

Presuming these terms are on a scale, with Morality on the left and success on the right.

We can even go back to our childhood for examples of these questions in the jovial games we would play.

The question often was: Would you [fill in the blank]for a million dollars???

In recent times, I often catch myself whenever I see someone do something questionable, and in return, they earn a vast amount of money or success; I nod and say ‘Fair enough.’

It’s as though the compromise of one’s morality is only accepted under the condition that success is a by-product.

Public sentiment from when I was younger has now evolved and been replaced with phrases like

• ‘Get the bag,’
• ‘Level up,’
• ‘Chase the bag,’
• ‘Fair enough.’

Answering the Title question.

So, if we were to refer back to the title, ‘Could your Morality be Holding you Back from Success?’

My answer, I think, would be yes for a lot of people.

Because many times, life typically does not operate in heavy wins when it comes to success. No one just offers the million dollars upfront.

Typically, it is an incremental rewards system that gradually builds to that point.

So, in the Dream Example Scenario 2, if you were not willing to make the call, then most likely the person asking you the million-dollar question will not materialise as quickly as it might for others and sometimes not at all.

But if you were to make that call, I guess you would have to ask yourself how far you would be willing to weigh down the scale of morality for success.

Essentially, what would you be willing to [fill the blank with]?

Thank you for reading and check out my War on an Untidy draft section