By Bill Cottringer

There are two ways to make choices in going through life—the hard way or the easy way. I am now a reformed “hard way” guy realizing you don’t necessarily loose any fun or excitement in doing things the easy way. In fact you may have more time to have more fun. What hare the two sources that lead to the hard vs. easy choices and subsequent quality of life? We have a psychological conscience and a moral conscience. The distinction between the two is important.

The psychological conscience is temporary, relative, complex, chaotic, unclear, and alternative-creating. The moral conscience is eternal, universal, simple, orderly, clear and alternative-reducing. One is easy to listen to and results in many failures; the other is hard to listen to and results in many successes. One is mostly driven by the now moment in relation to the past and the other by now moment in relation to the future. One is very indirect with vague thoughts and feelings; the other is direct with a silent but undeniable authoritative voice. Guess which is used most of the time by most of the people?

I have always been intrigued as to why so few people followed the perfect advice of the so-called Golden Rule. Mostly everyone agrees with it prudence and applicability, but yet the rule is violated every moment. Why is this? This disturbing reality led me to this distinction between our psychological and moral consciences.

Your moral conscience gives you the clear choice of alternatives in a yes-no, right or wrong, do or don’t do situation. There isn’t any real debate, just habitual resistance in delaying or avoiding the advice. With the Golden rule, you do the thing you would want done to you. On the other hand, your psychological conscience invents even more alternatives with lots of maybes and all sorts of other creative possibilities. The Golden Rule now becomes a concern about what you might want done to your self by certain others in a variety of different circumstances at different times, what the other person might want done to themselves at particular times and places, and what might be better or worse for everyone in the long run and short run. With the psychological conscience, a simple yes-no choice which needs to be made for a good, quick outcomes a major research project without an end.

Below is a table which shows some very easy yes-no, right-wrong choices in life. Deciding to be on the right side of this particular equation is a no-brainer, and getting there is no less difficult, because this is where the easy way—the moral conscience—is found. Perhaps most if not all choices are really much easier than we tend to make them?

Engaging in dishonesty and lies	Being honest and truthful
Joining in malicious gossip	Avoiding malicious gossip
Disabling others	Enabling others
Being unlikeable and unlovable	Being likeable and lovable
Being selfish	Being generous
Being egotistical	Practicing humility
Being an uncooperative individualist	Being a cooperative team member
Not enjoying life with pessimism	Enjoying life with optimism
Dwelling on  self	Thinking of others
Staying closed to possibilities	Remaining open to possibilities
Giving into impatience and intolerance	Practicing patience and tolerance
Looking to take	Looking to give
Remaining stagnant	Growing and improving
Denying a higher power	Believing in a higher power
Staying close-minded	Being open-minded
Being vindictive and unforgiving	Practicing forgiveness
Being unfriendly, negative and disagreeable	Being friendly, positive and agreeable
Allowing yourself to get out of balance	Striving to stay in balance
Not seeking purpose or meaning	Seeking purpose and meaning
Going to extremes	Staying temperate
Remaining weak	Getting stronger
Being exclusionary	Being exclusionary
Mismanaging time and resources	Managing time and resources
Being irresponsible	Being responsible
Avoiding commitments	Making  commitments
Breaking promises	Keeping promises
Not getting along with others	Getting along with others
Looking for what you think you want	Seeking what you know you need
Being insensitive and uncaring	Being sensitive and caring
Looking for short-term quick-fixes	Searching for long-term cures
Attempting to control things and people in life	Accepting things and people in life
Being undisciplined	Being disciplined
Not contributing to the community	Contributing to the community
Being lazy and unconscientiously	Being diligent and conscientious
Not practicing reverence	Practicing reverence

     My only question now is, am I making things too easy to choose the right thing to do?  It seems easy to me, but maybe that is only because I made it so hard for so long. And maybe I just was clear, simplified, and ordered answers rising to the surface in a sea of chaotic information overload. Or maybe my brain is getting tired.