Consequences Make Us Wiser

(After reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, Chapter 11)

It is a good thing there are consequences for what we do. Consequences are a second chance to learn something. Our first chance to learn something is to listen to our conscience. When we ignore or push aside the warning of the conscience and do something our conscience urges us not to do, negative consequences, usually painful in some way, teach us the same lesson again. Hopefully, the consequences will prevent us from going down that same path or a similar path later. The consequences can also teach us to pay more attention to our conscience and obey it in the future to avoid similar consequences.

Painful consequences include being marred physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. Sometimes consequences are experienced as loss--loss of friendship, loss of money, loss of health, loss of time, loss of integrity, loss of trust, loss of a clear conscience. All these things are meant to bring us to admit that it was wrong to do that, and not to go that route again--for our own good and for the good of others.

If there were no consequences, then it would far too easy for someone who begins down a wrong path to continue going down that path, onto worse and worse things, things that hurt other people or even take lives, because the person never learns to tame their passions or question their urges. If this pattern continues, devastation, desolation, and death will eventually be the result--and then there are eternal consequences to consider. It it better to be corrected, albeit painfully, but sooner, to keep from going too far down that treacherous path.

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THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, by Oscar Wilde, chapter 10

We are all given a conscience to guide us in doing what is right. When we go to do something that is not right, our conscience sends us a warning, a knowing that it is not the right thing to do. We are given the choice whether to give heed to our conscience or not, but if we refuse our conscience, it is wounded and damaged, and then if we persist in going the wrong way, our conscience becomes hardened, numbed. After our conscience has been numbed, we don't notice the messages our conscience would give us to warn us that something is not a good thing for us to do. This is not a good place to be, because the conscience is there for our own good and protection, as well as for the good of others. If we walk without a conscience, only doing as we please, the dangerous path leads to suffering, devastation, and death.

The good news is that it is not too late. Right now, if you listen, you will hear your conscience guiding you, showing you the right way, warning you not to go the wrong way. As you give heed to the very quiet voice, it will grow stronger, it will take up its place again, and you will begin to walk in right paths, where you will find increasing wisdom, truth, and peace. Keep walking in the right and true paths, keep listening for what is right, and you will find those most important things you have been separated from.

Seek, and you shall find.