A question of morality …

What defines your personal morality? What limits do they set with you? What would you be willing to do to uphold your moral code. And if you have lines you will not cross, is it a worthy moral code? Or is it all relative?

We all have a code that guides us. Even those we term amoral actually have a moral code … it is just unique to them and not necessarily one that functions with the rest of society. How we come about our code varies like fish in the ocean.

Most of us don’t want to define it for ourselves. Or never actually have the chance to. It takes the burden of responsibility out of our hands, removing the stress of deciding for ourselves if we let someone else make those decisions for us. And it becomes even easier to not question a moral code if we assign it to a Divine Scapegoat. The more removed and “above us” the source, the easier it is to accept our code as absolute … and to find reasons to alter it when the absolute becomes inconvenient.

But those of us who like to think; like to question … well we rarely take the easy way. We need to decide right and wrong for ourselves. The difficulty with this is then we only have ourselves to blame if our morality does not suit the situation. And then we face that toughest of questions … “Am I unworthy of my morality? Or is my morality wrong?”

Into the light … or the dark …

So what do we do then?

The holier-then-thous would insist that we immerse ourselves in guilt, beat ourselves up in an orgy of self recrimination, then beg forgiveness from the Divine Scapegoat so that we can go and do it all again.

Those of us who prefer to actually take responsibility for ourselves have a bit more work ahead of us.

Did I DO wrong or am I THINKING wrong? How do I correct it. Do I punish myself or fix it. Most likely both for that one. How do I make myself a better person? Improve my actions … or adjust my morality? Or maybe a little of both?

This is not the post I set out to write today. But maybe the essence of a personal dilemma that I was planning on relating. The truth of the matter is I have been struggling with my own sense of morality lately. Both the code itself and my own ability to uphold it. I have a very clear view of how I think things ought to be (at least for me). The problem is I have been very bad at living it lately. In recent weeks (months?) I have become the worse kind of hypocrite … the kind who is fully aware of his hypocrisy.

This has got to stop before I forget who I am.

Maybe I will elaborate on this more in a later post, since that was originally what I intended to write about. But as I began writing these questions emerged … questions that I think are important ones to ask ourselves. Or at least questions I need to ask MY self.

Perhaps others might benefit as well.