The Greatest Gift

Thinking long and hard about the purpose of life that can apply as a minimum standard for all of us regardless of our age, gender, social status, location and religious affiliations, I stumbled upon this answer. To live and die with a clear conscience – another way of looking at it is by answering a simple question – do we approve of our own actions?

I feel that if we ask this question to ourselves, we will get an unambiguous answer every time. After all this is a closed ended question. The moment we start justifying or defending our actions to ourselves, we can understand that there is a conflict – the worst kind there is – internal conflict. This wonderful thing called conscience is a true gift, a singularity we can’t escape from however much we try. We can ignore the pangs of conscience and keep doing things but this conflict will eventually make us despondent. There is incredible friction whenever we go against our conscience which tears us up from the inside over the long term. It might take years but a breakdown is unavoidable.

Every time life throws us a curveball, it is not only about how we respond but it’s vital to qualify our response beforehand. It cannot disrupt our inner harmony. We cannot sacrifice harmony for growth or comfort or even for an extension of life – who wants to lead a disharmonious life on an extended term. It is often better to silently suffer and wait for a better tomorrow than respond with action that grates our conscience. 

These thoughts are derivative at best and this blogger did not write this for any credit for original thinking. But the objective is to push every parent to have a conversation with their children about this priceless gift – conscience.