Exigency may be defined: 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 avow 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. The demands of work which focus on productivity, seemingly above any other consideration, the pressures of domestic life and relationships all create a sense of demand that brings us to the edge of our ethics and personal values.
Exigency then gives birth to Expediency. What is advantageous for me, rather than what is right. What will 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 expediency 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.
Better to live right, to choose right, and to choose right in advance of exigency than to allow expediency to prevail.
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