I lost a good friend last week when she committed suicide. I found out about her death when people started writing posts on her Facebook wall like “Goodbye” and “I hope you’ve found the peace you were looking for.”

A slightly weird way to find out that my friend had passed away, I thought.

I was saddened and shocked, and I still am, over her death. It’s painful to know that she’s gone—just like that. But I think a part of me felt shocked, too, because I was once again confronted with my own mortality. I was reminded that even though I’m in my 20s and I don’t have any health problems, I am one day going to die. If you were to ask anyone, “Do you think you’re going to live forever?” you will most likely get a reply that goes something like “Of course not—we’re human.”

But it is one thing to believe in your head that all humans eventually die, and it is another to have someone look you in the eye and say, “You are going to die. You are certainly going to die.”

I once read a psychology paper about people who try to evade death by engaging in death-defying activities like skydiving and bungee jumping. The paper argued that these activities are not “death-defying.” Rather, they are “death-denying.” We all know that we are mere mortals, but we often acknowledge this fact without actually coming to terms with it. Thus, participating in “death-denying” activities provides us with an avenue to further convince ourselves—in the subconscious realm—that we can escape death.

Over the past two years I’ve gone white water rafting, hang gliding, paragliding, skydiving and bungee jumping. Every time I complete a skydiving or bungee jumping attempt, I feel a little bit more empowered, a little bit more fearless, a little bit more immortal. I understand why some people constantly pursue stunts or activities that are literally life-threatening. It’s not just about the adrenaline rush or the adventure; it’s primarily about the accompanying sense of immortality, the feeling that death does not have a hold on you. I now recognize this as a foolish pursuit founded on an escapist mindset that leaves you with a sense of emptiness whenever you are not getting your quick fix of pseudo-immortality.

So when I learned of my friend’s death, I was reminded that there is no avoiding it. Since death is a reality for all of us, the question to ask ourselves is not “What can I do to make myself feel more immortal?”

Rather, we need to ask the question: “What do I want my life to count for?”

In “Repacking Your Bags: Lighten Your Load for the Rest of Your Life,” authors Richard Leider and David Shapiro found that most people’s number one fear is having lived a meaningless life. We all want to leave behind a legacy that is unique and special. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “perfect” legacy. Maybe you want to be remembered as a loving and generous person, or maybe you want to be remembered as a passionate person who helped to further a humanitarian cause, or maybe you want to be remembered as an intellectual who changed the way the world thinks about an issue.

But whatever it is that you want your legacy to be, you should be living every single day of your life building it. It’s a bit too late to start thinking about your legacy when you’re on your deathbed as it is not built in a day, but day by day.

On my deceased friend’s Facebook wall, there were many posts which described what a kind and warm person she was. Her legacy is her kindness and warmth—and I have no doubt that her life counted. It feels kind of strange to say this, but I guess our legacies will be summed up by what people write on our Facebook walls when we pass away.

What would you like your friends and family to write on your Facebook wall?

For me, I’d like people to write posts describing me as a man who really loved life and who really loved lives– just like the tagline of this website. My friend’s sudden death has caused me to make a recommitment to building this legacy day by day. Moreover, I want to fully come to terms with my mortality, for I believe that it is only when you are fully ready to die that you are fully ready to live. Eventually I’m going to die. In the meantime, I want to build a life that counts. And I want to really, really live.

To my friend whose life of kindness and warmth burned out far too soon, I look forward to that day when we meet in heaven. Until then, your legacy will echo for eternity here on earth.

I recently came back to Duke after spending 3 weeks in Peru. Here’s a picture of some native Peruvians.

The native people of Peru are descendants of the  Incans. The Incan empire dominated Peru from the 1400s to the 1530s. In the 1530s, the Spanish conquistadors arrived on the scene and conquered the Incans.

Many of the native people in Peru today still speak Kechua, the language of the Incans.

One interesting thing I learned is that, originally, there was no word for “thank you” in Kechua (although today there is). More about this later.

During the time of the Incan empire, the people often made offerings to the gods. It was hoped that the gods would be pleased, and would bless the people with good weather and a bountiful harvest. Llamas and alpacas were often sacrificed, but when an “extra big” blessing was needed, the Incans sacrificed young children and teenagers. These were considered the “best” kind of offering.

The tour guide told us that the “chosen” children were very willing to sacrifice their lives, and their parents were also willing to have their children be sacrificed!

The Incans believed that sacrificing your life was a way to serve the community, to serve the greater good. They believed in the concept of paying it forward. This explains why originally there was no word for “thank you” in the Kechua language. The way to express your gratitude was service. The Incans knew that everyone would be willing to lay down their lives for the community.

I’m not a fan of human sacrifice, but I do think that we have much to learn from the Incans.

Service is not just an admirable action, or something to make us feel good about ourselves. Service is meant to be a lifestyle, a mindset. Service is the call to operate out of a vastness of vision, to give of yourself because you know that you are part of a community, and that you are part of something far greater than yourself.

My older brother, Jonathan, owns a gym and he’s really into health and fitness. He recently did a radio interview where he was asked fitness-related questions. During the interview, he said something which I thought was pretty striking:

“We have confused what is average with what is normal. It is average to be obese, to have a poor diet, to be at risk for cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. But it is normal to be in good shape, to be lean and strong, and to have a low risk of contracting degenerative diseases.”

We have confused what is average with what is normal.

Jonathan was talking specifically about physical health, but I think this applies in many other areas of life as well.

One of my good friends recently told me that he’s found a magical technique for building rapport and making new friends. “All you have to say is, ‘Oh man, I’m so tired. I really need a nap,’” he explained. “You’ll immediately connect with people, and they’ll always respond, ‘Me too! I’m so tired, I could really use a nap right now.’” And just like that—ta-dah! You’ve established common ground with a stranger.

The most hilarious thing is that my friend sometimes uses this magical friend-making technique even when he’s not tired and does not need a nap. I never imagined that “I really need a nap” could become a kind of figure of speech!

It’s noteworthy that although it’s clearly not desirable to always be tired, we’ve come to accept it as normal, simply because everyone else is always tired. If you’re always upbeat and full of energy, some might even consider you weird!

I believe that we need to raise our standards of what we consider “normal.” When these higher standards are in place, our behavior will undoubtedly change. When you change your thoughts and beliefs, you’ll gradually modify your actions too.

If you’re fully convinced that it is normal to get enough sleep every day, it is normal to have deep and meaningful relationships, and it is normal to be passionate about igniting change in whatever field excites you—regardless of whether or not this is “average”—I’m sure that your life will be more fulfilling and fruitful.

Who doesn’t want to be normal, right?

In our culture of always having a hundred and one things to do but no time to do them, it’s easy to neglect the small things: replying that e-mail you know you ought to, returning that phone call, being punctual—and not five minutes late—for your meetings.

It’s Chicken Soup for the Soul author Jack Canfield who said, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” When we intentionally do the small things well, even if that’s not the “average” thing to do, we will naturally do the big things well too. But we have to first decide that we will not let what is average influence what we consider to be normal.

Lesson 12 was the last lesson of the semester. The students in the class bought me a Jesus soft toy, because they wanted to inspire me to become a great ethicist like Jesus. I thought that was really sweet of them! Although I do think that the soft toy kind of looks like Einstein, don’t you?

Being an instructor for this house course has been a defining experience for me. A few days ago, I asked myself what personal significance this course has had to me. The one word that jumped out at me was TRUTH.

I believe in the notion of truth. I believe that it is often complex, confusing, hidden or elusive. But there is such a thing as truth.

At an academic institution like Duke, I’ve had the opportunity to hear countless experts talk about their views on a great number of issues. It often amazes me how many different opinions on the same issue you’ll hear from experts. This is true whether they’re talking about scientific theories, healthcare, leadership, the economy, the environment, or engineering practices.

Considering the fact that some of the smartest people in the world can’t agree on what is correct, it’s tempting to think that everything is relative or circumstantial or situational– that absolute truth does not exist.

But this house course has been a reminder to me that although the truth is often hard to sieve out, truth does exist. Through the assigned readings and the students’ sharing of their personal experiences and beliefs, I feel like I’ve come that much closer to finding the truth in many ethical issues.

I’m an idealist at heart, and one of my favorite quotes is by writer Joshua Harris:

“Ideals are like stars. We will not succeed in touching them with our hands, but by following them, like the sea-faring man on the ocean, we will reach our destiny.”

This house course has helped me to see that truth is an ideal we must never give up on.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving– Thanksgiving Day was yesterday–I’m thankful to have had the chance to be an instructor for this class, I’m thankful that I got to know my students who are such amazing people, I’m thankful to have been able to learn so much from all of my students, and I’m thankful that there is such a thing as truth

A wise man once said to me, “People don’t do what you expect. People do what you inspect.”

This saying is relevant to the topic of discussion for Lesson 11– the ethics of privacy.

One of the readings dealt with the issue of companies monitoring their employees’ e-mails. How ethical/unethical you think this practice is depends largely on how much you think employees are “owned” while on the job.

Three fundamental definitions of privacy are that it is:

1) the right to be left alone

2) the right to control access to one’s personal information, and

3) the right to withhold certain facts from public knowledge.

Looking at these three definitions of privacy, it’s clear that managerial monitoring of e-mail is in violation of one’s privacy rights. Thus, the question is not whether the monitoring of employees’ e-mails infringes upon privacy rights. Rather, the question is whether employees are still in full possession of these rights when they are on the job.

If employees are “owned” while they are at work, then some of their fundamental rights are waived, and monitoring their email isn’t a big deal. But if employees are seen as individuals whose primary focus is work, but who are still in complete possession of all their fundamental rights while they are at work, then monitoring their email is a big deal.

Most of the senior citizens in the class have held positions as managers some time during their careers, and they had plenty of stories to tell about subordinates who did their very best to slack off on company time– unless someone was looking directly over their shoulders.

That wise man is right– people do what you inspect, not what you expect.

The senior citizens felt that companies should reserve the right to monitor their employees’ e-mails, but should not exercise that right unless they suspect that something criminal or fraudulent is going on. If you start routinely monitoring e-mails just to check up on your employees, it establishes a culture of mistrust. How great can an organization or company be when people don’t trust each other?

To monitor e-mails or not to monitor e-mails… I believe that it’s less about what you choose to do, and more about how you choose to do it. If you see people merely as a means to an end– a means to help you achieve your goals or earn more profits– I don’t think that anyone could ever fully trust you. But if you see people as an end in themselves, I’m pretty sure that even if you’re forced to monitor e-mails, you’ll do it in such a way that people know you still care about them.

“Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.” – Immanuel Kant

I learned many things about abortion in this class on the ethics of reproduction.

For one, I learned that many Christians believe that abortion is not morally wrong. (Before this class, I’d never heard a Christian say that abortion is completely okay!) And they have Bible verses to back up their beliefs. For example, Numbers 3:15-16 says, ”‘Count the Levites by their families and clans. Count every male a month old or more.’ So Moses counted them, as he was commanded by the word of the LORD.”

These Christians take this to mean that fetuses and infants younger than one month old are not considered persons. Okay… I think this passage is taken out of context, but it’s still new to me to hear Christians saying that abortion isn’t unethical.

Next, I learned that many women see abortion rights as vital for gender equality. They believe that women need free access to abortion in order to achieve complete political, social, and economic equality with men.

Truthfully, as a male, I’ve never considered the right to have an abortion as a factor that affects gender equality!

I also learned that one of the key ideas which is at the heart of the abortion debate is the issue of death being a “bad” thing. Killing someone– if that’s what you believe abortion essentially is– is only wrong if death is a bad thing… but why do we immediately assume that death is a bad thing? In some cases, couldn’t living be a worse option than dying? Or do we think that death is a bad thing because most of us have yet to fully come to terms with our own mortality?

But the one thing from the assigned readings that jumped out at me was this passage that talks about how the debate should be less about abortion and more about other issues:

“There are women who are raped and become pregnant; the problem is that they were raped, not that they are pregnant.

There are women who are starving who become pregnant; the problem is that they are starving, not that they are pregnant.

There are women in abusive relationships who become pregnant; the problem is that they are in abusive relationships, not that they are pregnant.”

Well said! The abortion debate often distracts us from tackling the real issues.

I believe that this applies in our personal lives too. When we start accepting full responsibility for our lives, we’ll stop blaming others/our parents/the government/the system/etc. for the unhappiness we feel. Blaming others is just technique we use to side-step the real issues in our lives, and make ourselves feel better because our problems are “someone else’s fault.”

I believe that questions determine your focus in life, and your focus in life determines your behavior, and your behavior determines the results you get. If you don’t take full responsibility for your life, you’ll be asking questions like “Why does this always happen to me?” or “How could the government do this to me?” or “Why couldn’t I have grown up in a better family?”– questions that are certain to lead to more unhappiness.

But when you start taking full responsibility for everything that goes on in your life, you’ll start asking questions like “What can I do to ensure that I get the desired results next time?” or “What can I do to grow as a person today?” or “What can I do to make the best of this situation?”. These are empowering questions that help you get to the root issue of why you’re not getting the results you want.

This Jim Rohn quote sums it up nicely: “Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.”

Today I was the star of the show. Well, kind of

The topic today was the ethics of romance, and I’m the only Duke male undergraduate in the class.

So the class decided that my views would be representative of the entire Duke male student population. Well… for anyone who knows me, I think you’ll agree that my views on romance and love are probably not typical of a college student

We spent a lot of time today talking about what the romance-scene on college campuses is like. Not surprisingly, the older folks had a hard time understanding the hookup culture that’s so prevalent. (I didn’t know what the hookup culture was all about until I came to Duke, so I added that link just in case you aren’t familiar with it either.)

In the old days, people went on dates, but today there are far more “hookups” which involve physical intimacy without any sort of long-term commitment.

The older folks were rather disgusted with the hookup culture, and they pretty much concluded that– this is my paraphrase, of course– the present generation is going to hell.

When I said that I don’t believe in “hooking up” with girls and I don’t believe in casual dating and I believe in taking a girl out to dinner and in the idea of courtship, two of the older women immediately exclaimed, “Bless your heart, Dan. Bless your heart.”

Bless my heart? Hilarious stuff!

I’ve always thought that girls who participate in the hookup culture do it because they enjoy the physical intimacy and aren’t interested in being in a committed relationship. But after hearing the female Duke students express some views contrary to this, I asked, “Does that mean that girls who engage in the hookup culture aren’t actually willing participants?”

One female Duke student replied, “We’re not willing participants! We would much rather have a dating culture, but boys aren’t interested in dating. So we have no choice.”

That response caught me by surprise! So girls who play the hookup game actually want deep, meaningful relationships, but they have to settle for hookups. So basically they’re trying to have their emotional needs met through physical means… which I don’t think is possible?

Hmm… no wonder the female Duke students were so upset that boys don’t ask them out on dates anymore!

I’ve always felt slightly old-fashioned for thinking that the only proper method of pursuing a relationship is for a guy to court a girl– but I guess that most modern women are still fond of that approach?

Lesson 8 focused on the ethics of social equality, and we spent most of the class talking about affirmative action.

Before coming to Duke, I had never heard anyone use the term “affirmative action.” So for those of you who aren’t familiar with what it is, here’s the ever-dependable Wikipedia definition:

“The term affirmative action refers to policies that take race, ethnicity, or sex into consideration in an attempt to promote equal opportunity or increase ethnic or other forms of diversity.”

At the beginning of the class, we took a poll, and found that everyone believes in social equality. Um, that’s not a big surprise, you might be thinking…

I completely agree, but even though (almost) everyone in the world believes in social equality, we are also extremely divided when it comes to deciding how we ought to achieve it.

Case in point: affirmative action.

Here are some of the arguments for affirmative action:

- It levels the playing field, because a lot of people are born “behind” in life and we should help them “catch up”

- It makes the “glass ceiling” disappear (whether it’s for women/minority ethic groups/etc.)

- It gets you in the door, but if you don’t have what it takes, affirmative action won’t keep you in

- It increases diversity in institutions of education, in the workplace, etc.

Here are some arguments against affirmative action:

- It internalizes the notion that some groups of people are “inferior”

- It de-legitimizes the achievements of those in the minority group (for instance, if affirmative action was widely practiced in medical schools, would it make you doubt the competence of every black doctor you meet– even if he or she really is the best doctor around?)

- It is unfair because more “qualified” people will be denied what they deserve

For the class, we split up into two groups, those for affirmative action and those against affirmative action.

It’s noteworthy that those who were for affirmative action comprised a Jewish male, a black female, and five elderly females, while all the young females and white males were against affirmative action.

Pretty interesting, no?

Personally, I’m still conflicted as to whether I’m for or against affirmative action. Affirmative action would be effective– ideal even?– in a society where the focus is on community and the collective good. But when we’re caught up in the pursuit of our individual liberties, can we fully embrace policies that may infringe upon those liberties?

Read the following questions one by one and answer “yes” or “no” before moving to the next question. Just go with your gut response and don’t over-think it

1) Is it ever okay to torture another human being?

2) You have a terrorist in custody. There is a ticking time bomb that is going to go off in the middle of the city within the next 24 hours. 10,000 lives are in danger. This terrorist is the only person who knows where the bomb is. In this case, is it okay to torture him in the hope that he will tell you where the bomb is?

3) Should we hold those who authorize torture accountable, even if the torture is carried out to save lives?

4) The Obama administration says that, with regard to all the torture-related issues, they want to move forward rather than dwell on things in the past. Do you agree with this approach?

The topic of discussion was the ethics of justice, and these are four of the many questions that were asked during class.

I’m not sure what your answers were, but if you think like me, here’s how you might have responded:

1) No

2) Yes

3) Yes

4) Yes

Pretty interesting questions, don’t you think?

Answering “no” to question 1 is in contradiction to answering “yes” to question 2; answering “yes” to question 3 is in contradiction to answering “yes” to question 4.

In fact, when confronted with question 2, I answered “yes,” and immediately asked– with a big grin– if I could withdraw my earlier response to question 1

I think that many, if not most, people would answer “no” to question 1 because they associate the word “torture” with punishment– and torturing someone as a form of punishment is something that most of us find repulsive. For me, the first image that comes to mind when I hear the word “torture” is one of a parent burning a young child’s arm with a lit cigarette, which I definitely find repulsive!

But question 2 specifically defines torture as a means of extracting information rather than punishing someone. Making that distinction explicit is probably why many people would answer “yes” to this question.

I think that the apparent contradiction in my answers to question 3 and 4 demonstrate the power of words.

What if question 4 read like this instead:

4) The Obama administration says that, with regard to all the torture-related issues, they want to run away from the mistakes of the past rather than deal with them head-on. Do you agree with this approach?

I know that’s a pretty extreme re-write of the question, but I think you get my point?

Thinking about my initial responses to those four questions over the past four days, I felt rather troubled. Am I not clear about what I truly believe?

But writing this post has helped me to see that not all apparent contradictions are signs of incongruence (although I’m keenly aware of the fact that we often find justifications for our own bad behavior), but instead are indications of issues which are steeped in nuances and which a gut feeling is not able to immediately make sense of.

This week’s lesson was on the ethics of war.

Having spent two years in the military, I felt especially excited about leading this week’s discussion.

The closest I’ve been to real combat is live-firing exercises or missions where we used blanks, and my only death-related experience was when one of my men committed suicide.

So I’ll be the first to admit that I have no idea what real war is like! But preparing for the lesson certainly did bring back many memories from my time in the army.

During class, we discussed three main topics:

1) The ethics of asymmetric war

2) The ethics of preventive war

3) The ethics of humanitarian intervention

The thing that struck me about our conversation was that  ”it really depends” and “we need to look at it on a case-by-case basis” and “that’s a difficult question to answer” were common responses.

This is in contrast to previous weeks– when we talked about the ethics of business/journalism/free trade– when people were generally firm and unwavering in their opinions.

What is so unique about war that makes us more unsure about what our ethical stance is?

During the discussion, one example I brought up was that in Kosovo, allied planes dropped bombs on targets from higher altitudes than usual, so that the planes would remain out of range of Serb surface-to-air missiles. However, dropping bombs from a higher altitude meant that accuracy was compromised, and more civilian targets were unintentionally hit.

I asked the class, “In such a scenario, do you have a greater responsibility to your troops, or to the civilians of the country you are attacking?”

One of the senior citizens seemed troubled by the question, and replied, “So, Dan, basically you’re asking us if one life is more precious than another?”

I believe that her response sums up what makes war unique: in war, people die.

When you declare that you hold a particular ethical belief about war, you are usually indirectly saying that you believe someone should die. For instance, if you believe that preventive war is ethical, you’re saying it’s okay for innocent people to die for a “just cause.”

Death is something that strikes home, because it’s something that we know we will all experience one day. At some level, we all believe that life is precious and valuable, which explains why we are more reluctant to hold absolute beliefs whose implications lead to people dying– all at the expense of our ideals.

I’m someone who truly believes in ideals, and this Joshua Harris quote is one of my favorite:

“Ideals are like stars. We will not succeed in touching them with our hands, but by following them, like the sea-faring man on the ocean, we will reach our destiny.”

But when it’s a case of ideals vs. lives, it isn’t always that easy to decide which one we value more?