Essays

Conscience

     We get tests in life.  Tests in whether we give up, or become stronger.  Tests in love; how far it will stretch.  Is it unconditional, or limited?  Does it get stronger?  Or does it give up?  Is it selfless or selfish?  Is it empathetic or apathetic and self-absorbed?  We get tested in our abilities to feel for others, standing in their shoes.  In doing so, we learn about what kind of individuals we are.  Are we strong and stand shoulder-to-shoulder, in supporting our fellow man, the way we would like to be helped if we needed them?  Or do we back away, letting them fall, kicking them while they are down, because we are weak, yet we call them weak.  They are the ones who are strong, because they treat others the way they want to be treated, with unconditional empathy and understanding.  And the fact that they get back up on their own, shows how they were always the stronger one.  And they would never let anyone else fall like they were allowed to fall and no one helped them get back up.  

     Do we blame others for our problems?  Or do we show a better example by prevailing, and living a better example than they showed us?  Do we blame ourselves when we are kicked and bullied?  It is not our fault.  By showing a better example, and being the kinder person, we show our independence and strength.  The others are weak.  They need to let us fall and kick us while we are down because that is the only way that they feel powerful, but they are never truly strong, nor independent.  They are dependent on our so-called failures.  They know not how to create their own successes.  They need to be served by others, or to have others fail, so that they can point the finger and say, “Look, they have fallen…They are weak…Look what they have done to me.”  What did they do to you?  You let go of their arm, not the other way around.  And then you spat on them while they were on the ground.  That is not power, that is cruelty; lack of conscience.  That is a failed test.  People, who are like that, will always fail the tests that they are given because they only see a narrow, dark, dimly lit, one-way road ahead of them.  One-way roads always come to an end.  They have no way of seeing anything else.  If something shows up in their peripheral vision, they will not see it, because they only see the narrow path, leading to a dead end.  They do not see anything other than their own agenda.  They will not see the people who are fallen on the side of the road or the other avenues that branch out in other directions.  They will never get anywhere.  They will stay on their dead-end road, continuously repeating the same cycles throughout their own lives. 

     Lack of empathy, lack of conscience, lack of love, will always cause one to fail.  The good person will always get back up on their own and become stronger through their suffering.  And their hearts will only become warmer and their loving arms, only opening wider, with success abound all around them, including people to share that success with.  They passed the greatest test of all: Being abandoned and hurt even more whilst they were already in pain, in mental turmoil and physical anguish, yet lifting themselves up all on their own after.  They led the better example, took the wider, better-lit path.  And they have ultimate empathy; unconditional love.  This will allow them to pass every single test life hands out to them, cycle after cycle, indefinitely.  

     Which would you rather be?  The all-loving leader, like a Deity who always will have their warm arms unconditionally open, or the follower who stands over those who they have kicked down, expecting them to get back up and give them their all-loving embrace?  Which one makes more sense?  We all must raise the ultimate self-aware life test question to ourselves: Do I have a conscience - or lack thereof?