I just made an attempt to correct an elderly member of the family over a persistent wrong he/she seems be doing – perhaps out of mere habit. I wasn’t rude, and no real fuss was created at all. In fact, what makes my heart sink right now is that he/she responded to what I said by, “okay, I didn’t mean any harm”. Now, I feel bad, although I am sure that I did the right thing. Could it be that I did what I did in the wrong manner, or does the state of my heart bear witness to a wrongdoing in the first place?
Answer
I think that you are feeling bad about what you did with the elderly person because of your perception as to what the limits of your obligations towards the elders are. Such perceptions vary from individual to individual. Our conscience does go by the peculiarities of our personalities. Some people, for instance, make very strong remarks about others in their presence but don’t feel uncomfortable with what they did. Others curse themselves for making even marginally strong statements. Our conscience works in the details of its functioning in accordance with the way we have trained it. Although the God-given pure conscience has all the good virtues that human nature possesses, it gets moulded in accordance with the manner it is utilized by the bearer of it.