Expediency: a regard for what is politic or advantageous rather than for  what is right or just; a sense of self-interest.

Exigency: need, demand, or requirement intrinsic to a circumstance,  condition, etc.: the exigencies of city life.

Ethics:  that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human  conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.

Three ‘E’ words that make all the difference in how we live and conduct our lives. I think it is accurate to state that most would say that they live their lives according to an ethical standard. That standard includes such moral virtues as honesty, respect, fairness, etc. Our behavior, for I include myself in this group, seeks to portray a belief in ultimate values of right and wrong with a focus on living a righteous life.

Now enters exigency. Who of us cannot deny that life pushes at us, and is sometimes almost overwhelming in its intensity and urgency?  The demands of work that focus on productivity, seemingly above any other consideration, the pressures of domestic life and maintaining relationships all create a sense of demand that brings us to the edge of our ethics and personal values. We feel pressured to perform, and because of the urgency, real or imagined, our ethics sometimes comes second as we rush to “get it done.”

Exigency then gives birth to Expediency; what is advantageous for me, rather than what is right, or what will or benefit me or mine in the moment of pressure often takes supremacy over our ethics. We sign a paper we shouldn’t have, we tell a lie to make ourselves look better, we pocket an item that doesn’t belong to us. The exigency of the moment passes and we find we have stepped beyond our ethics and for what? Our act of exigency instead of enriching us has lessened us. Any temporary benefit received pales when evaluated against our loss of character. The explanations we make to excuse the act are for others, or perhaps even to attempt to fool ourselves, but we know the truth.

I urge you to remember these three words today as you go through your day. It is almost certain that exigency or expediency will push against your ethics. Be the better person. It is better to live right, to choose right, and to choose right in advance of exigency than to allow expediency to prevail.