Rules of Conscience

Move forward 10 feet. Yield. Turn right. Stop.

A bright red stop light blinks, warning your mind to stop. Don’t go any further, as this the moment  that one’s conscious instructs you not to run the red. Sure, sometimes you might fly through the yellow light, barely staying within the bounds of the law. Yet when the yellow light is too far away, every so often you may actually run the red light. When you run past the light, a cop car may light up behind you, which is the indicator that you have to pay the consequences for the law that you broke.

A conscience is like a stoplight, with your actions being the car. The stop lights glow in numerous colors, which will either re-affirm your actions or warn you to stop.

According to the dictionary, the word conscience means, an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior. The word has many different meanings to each individual. Everyone has their own opinions on what is wrong compared to what is right and therefore ones stop lights shine different colors at different intersections.

One’s conscience is not simply programmed into the GPS. It is created through what one has seen, what one has been taught, and what one feels.

Every moment during one’s life –no matter how big or how small– not only creates, but also challenges one conscience. Many moments create new rules on one’s conscience, past green is go and red is stop. One moment may cause one to yield on yellow while another moment may cause one to turn right on red. However, some moments challenge the rules your brain has implemented as wrong vs right. Some moments show the conscience,of how it was once perceived as right but no longer is. It is how there is no turn on red when pedestrians are present.

One’s conscience is not believing they can change their own thoughts, but stopping their wrongful actions that may lead to them. As Snyder writes, “A person is invisible activities” (1). Others are not able to read one’s conscience. What dictates to others the type of person you are and the morality of one’s conscience is in their actions.

As The Cycle of socialization dictates, “You might say a name, and describe how tall he is, and the color of his eyes and hair. But none of these things are what the person is (48 Harro). Just as a conscience influences one’s actions, showing what type of person they are, one can not judge others as they can not see more than just the outside. As Snyder explains, a conscience is invisible to all others besides the ones brain. You can see the blueprint directions on a map, but that does not show the close up features.

Defying one’s own conscience never settles well. A conscience serves a purpose of showing what is moral vs immoral. If someone goes against their conscience the only punishment they face may be internal. One may face the consequences that their conscience feels is appropriate for the severity of their actions. This could be a short nagging feeling that dissipates after a day, or a prolonging tug of guilt that lasts for months.

Defying one’s conscience can be seen as internal struggles over choices a mind makes. A prime example where one’s conscience may struggle with the moral decision, is in the position where you must decide whether to give money to the homeless, or continue shopping for oneself.

People are afraid to admit that they are wrong and that is a fundamental problem in society (Wheatley 1). When people do not admit that they are wrong, they try to trick others and their own conscience by saying their actions were not immoral, therefore, not denying one’s conscience.

Overall, everyone’s conscience is individual and unique to oneself. The actions of the “immoral” may be because they disobey their conscience or because their conscience has a very different set of rules compared to most. The rules a conscience develops, directly correlates to both nature and nurture. Some are born with different ideals that are already set in place. At the same time, everything that happens during one’s life has a huge affect on the rules of one’s conscience.

It is important to stay true to one’s conscience, even if one’s conscience is more strict, thus limiting the decisions that individual would prefer.

There will always be reckless drivers on the roads, yet the individuals that obey the traffic laws,  rarely will find themselves in a car wreck.