Do You Have One? I have often wondered if the conscience is something we are born with or if it is instilled in us by our parents, as we are taught right from wrong. I have my doubts about it being instilled in us by our parents, only because I have seen siblings whose conscience would be more predominant in one or more and nonexistent in another. So how do we come to have a conscience? I may be wrong but I believe that it is when we as individuals become more selfless than selfish. I believe it is when we as individuals cannot rest easy knowing we have intentionally wronged someone else. I believe we acquire a conscience once we realize we cannot possibly have any level of integrity without morals. Maybe some have trouble understanding what their conscience is telling them. If your conscience is anything at all like mine, I can’t imagine it being any clearer. If you have to ask yourself if it is right or wrong…You can almost bet, it is wrong. If you have to keep it a secret, you can almost bet it is wrong. If you lie to someone, that cares very much about you or loves you, to acquire anything from them that you may or may not have gotten by telling the truth, it is without question or doubt, wrong. If you promise someone to return something then lie about why you cannot, it is without question or doubt, wrong. All these things may seem trivial to you because your main concern of course is who else, but you. A day will come in your life when the tables will turn. Someone you love and trust will deceive you, for their own personal gain. Some day someone you devoted your entire adult life to will betray you and use you without giving it a second thought. Someone you love is going to make you feel like you are nothing in their life because you realized, you must not have been much to them anyway, or they could have never done, what they did to you. How does that feel? You will experience the pain you have inflicted on others. Then one of two things will happen. One, you will realize how wrong you have been and make an honest effort to make right these wrongs. If not to those you wronged, to all that come into your life from this point forward. Two, you will grow even angrier and more hurtful and have absolutely no morals or integrity. You cannot lie and demand trust. You cannot betray and demand loyalty. You cannot expect to get anything out of life, that you are not freely and honestly willing to give. If you have friends or family in your life, that are willing to put hardships on themselves and their own families in order to help you and yours, how can you possibly in good conscience ignore the fact that you owe them and not make every possible effort to pay them back? Don’t burn a bridge that someday you may need far more than you did the day you burned it. When you stand in front of the mirror, can you honestly say with a clear conscience, I truly hope that my son and or daughter grow up to be the man or woman that you are? We are the examples they emulate. Are you OK with that?
Simply my thoughts
Dean Butler
