You can walk with anyone during the day so long as you can sleep with yourself at night.

 “If you say there is no such thing as morality in absolute terms, then child abuse is not evil, it just may not happen to be your thing.” 
― Rebecca Manley Pippert

“You wear your honor like a suit of armor, Stark. You think it keeps you safe, but all it does is weigh you down and makes it hard for you to move.” 
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

I have the tendency to see the world in more shades of white and black than grey.  I know that is not quite politically correct these days and the populace seems to defend the grey.  They have a point, some wrongs and rights are more wrong  and more right than others…but the flaw with this type of thinking is that if you have a full beer it won’t make my half beer cease to exist. Not only do two wrongs not equal a right,  One very big wrong does not make a smaller wrong better.   That’s right I’m not grateful that I was “only hit” just because someone else was killed.  If I have 20 bucks to blow on dinner, does that mean I shouldn’t want $20 more to blow on drinks?  If I have a nice apartment, does that negate the beauty of the better one that costs far more or the detriments of living in a box?   Things are only gray in the middle…..the rest of the time they are more white or more black.  I believe there is always a bottom line answer if we look hard enough….the bottom line does not only exist in accounting money. A small wrong is STILL wrong.  A small right STILL matters.

Occasionally my way of thinking and admittedly overdeveloped ethics are called into question as if they are a bad thing to have. Detrimental in some way.  I don’t like pretending for instance.  Role play games (well unless I really really trust someone and it’s a private thing) LITERALLY make me sick to my stomach and give me nightmares.  I avoid lying as much as possible….and that is no easy task in the world we live in where subterfuge and "need to know" are common tactics even in social life.  I tend to hold disdain for anything nontransparent and only like straight questions and equally straight answers.  Grey is  definitely not my favorite color.  I even use the word grey as a negative adjective.  

You can imagine the insult I feel when the one thing I feel truly guilty pride about is made out to be a flaw!!!  It isn’t  easy to live by my own standards and trust me, I am too smart to not realize that if I lowered my morality standards that life would be much easier and to be completely honest, more profitable.   For instance, I can't accept extra change from a cashier.  I will spend more money in gas returning it than the actual amount of over change....that is one of the reasons I love debit cards... I beat myself up everytime I fail to live by these standards too....and since I can't help being human .....I hate myself sometimes.  Still I continue to find satisfaction in the effort to do right, be right and live right....even when I fail because I know it is right to keep trying.

I endeavor always to try to put myself in the mix when I am dealing with others.  It’s the golden rule effect.  If I wouldn’t accept something from someone, then I don’t expect them to accept it from me.  I have a heart, a soft, generous, loving heart.  I’m a humanist.  I love people.  I try to do good deeds on a regular basis….and its frequent. I seldom write about the good deeds I do because the truth is I don’t really do them to get credit for being a good person, I do them because they need doing and I believe each of us should say  “I should…” or “why not me” instead of or immediately following “someone should…..whatever the needed task or good idea”.  Even more so I love people so much that even when faced with terrible people, or people who immediately dislike me for whatever reason, I try very hard to excuse their behavior, attempt to find something, even a lame something to like about them. Then I ask myself “What am I doing wrong here”, “What can I do to please this person”, “Why doesn’t he/she like me”.  Usually I am able to turn things around, not always but almost always.  I think in terms of good and evil….but I always…. always….. always…. want it to turn out “good”.  I love “happily ever after”.  Being nice and being kind isn't fun or even pleasant sometimes....but it is the right thing to do.  It wish I could say I was always successful, but I'm not.  I can be as much of a bitch or a bully as the next woman or man.  I apologize when I realize though.  I try to make reparations if its possible and I try very hard to learn from situations and become a better person.  There is a type of self respect involved in the trying.

It helps that people usually like me.  I think when you truly believe in humanity, in the value of every person…..it just shows.  More than that, I believe it is a family trait.  Science tells me it could actually be the scent of our skin.  I don’t know…but I take advantage of the apparently natural advantage, at work and in my personal life.  I do admit that the last few years I’ve actually tried to be more discerning.  A few bad relationships that if had I followed my gut instincts rather than my heart, wouldn’t have caused as much damage, and a lifelong history of being taken advantage of or misused finally caught up to me and caused me not to trust as easily.  I’ve learned that a violent manner is always a sign that, as much as I would like to save someone, I’ll end up having to save myself.  I’ve learned to be careful who I loan money to and learned that some people may need your help but not really want to change their life.  It was egotistical of me to try…. I know I don’t have all the answers….sometimes the answers are grey, whether I want to see it or not.

All that being said though, I plan to continue to live by rules based on real values and ethics (no I could care less about crossing against traffic).   I love guidelines, even if they must be adjusted from time to time when a situation really is a shade of my detested grey.  I despise dishonesty, abhor secrets, destest bullshit (rules without reason) and more than anything I live real life, I don’t pretend.  Make believe is for children and pop psychology, not responsible adults. Frankly I don't like pop psychology either (Have you noticed how every manager and care giver these days tries to "shrink" you?).  I am not the result of any one childhood event...I am a complicated person who has lived a full and eventful life. I don't blame my mother for my mistakes and excesses any more than I give her credit for every little thing I do right (unless its one of the many things I did learn from her).  This is my life and unless someone has lived it with me...he or she will NOT be able to casually psychoanalyze me.  I'm not broken and require no repair....thank you very much.

The people who don’t like my linear thinking don’t understand why I am who and what I am.  Those persons have not had to make the decisions and choices I’ve had to make.  I'm certain some people think I'm cold and hard-assed.   I need my logic and regulations to prevent myself from doing the wrong thing to make other people's lives easier if not better.  They don't seem to understand that mental self control is used to prevent my emotions from taking over. Not everyone has had to carry the weight of responsibility that I have had on mine for most of my life. So they keep trying to change me into a gray-thinker.  If I had been a gray thinker I shudder to think what would have become of my children and me as I was raising them by myself. 

I’m not going to erase a life of experiences, I’m not going to lose one iq point, nor stop doing right even when its hard because others think that my life would be better if I were more like them.  It does me no good to try to sway anyone to my way of thinking.  Maybe just maybe there is still room for all types of people on this planet. That is as close as I can get to clothing myself in a grey shroud…..

“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.” 
― Leo Tolstoy, A Confession

“Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” 
― Augustine of Hippo