By David Hegg

Sometimes things we hear all the time can slowly creep into our belief system as though they were true. But, as a general rule, most general rules generalize truth to the place where they are untrustworthy. They may be clever, but that doesn’t make them useful.

Here’s an example. We’ve all been told, “Just let conscience be your guide.” And while this may have some general benefit, in most cases, we should never let our consciences be our guides.

The conscience is really just your own morality alarm clock. It goes off when you are about to cross over some line. But the problem is, like your alarm, you get to set your conscience, or at least feed it the information that informs it as to what is right and wrong. You train your conscience according to your own beliefs, and then you expect it to tell you when you’re about to color outside the lines. When you’re sleeping, and your alarm goes off, you have a choice. You can get up or hit the snooze button and drift off for seven more glorious minutes. The conscience acts similarly. When it starts poking you with some conviction, you can reprogram it through rationalization and continue down your chosen path.

But........

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