I was reading the forum and noticed that somewhere someone had mentioned our conscience and how some people just have a more sensitive one.
I love a person with conscience.
Anyway I got to thinking about how sometimes our conscience can go haywire and how we need others, who love us, to gently pull us back to the middle ground.

So here is a story about my son who I have noticed has a very keen conscience. It might not be exactly conscience but it is associated with conscience and the power of suggestion.

When he was about 5 years old we where having dinner and my husband mentioned an old co worker that he had run into. This persons son had gotten an eye infection that the doctors where trying to clear up and there was some speculation that he could lose sight in that eye.
Turns out that the doctors where treating this boy for a couple weeks before they did some test to determine what the bacteria was. And it boiled down to this child had gotten pocked in the eye with a stick that had bird fesses on it. I guess there is a bacterium in bird crap that is very dangerous to the eyes.

So in the course of eating dinner the boys where listing and where concerned about weather they could go blind they asked a few questions and so I just simply said “well if you think you have touched some bird feces then you should just come in and wash your hands to be safe”.
Nuf said.

In the course of the next few days the boys had taken this news to a whole new level. They where washing their hands, all day long. I was rather enjoying it. They were busy boys. Turning their bikes upside down checking the chains, playing baseball in the back yard, building forts.
Extra hand washing was a welcome activity.
I think this must have gone on for about 5 days. So we are at dinner again and my youngest says “mom I have a rash on my hands”. I look at the rash and conclude that it was from all the hand washing. So I quick think "well I’m not ready to give up the hand washing just yet." So I simply say “it looks like you need to rinse your hands better when you wash them you must be leaving soap on them and it is causing a rash.” But at the same time I am becoming a little annoyed now with all the running in and out to wash the hands somehow I realized that it was reaching a feverish pitch.
Well a couple more days go by and my youngest comes storming in the back door and looks completely frantic. And he says “I think I saw something white I need to wash my hands”

That is when I realized that he had taken this to a whole new level. He was actually going around looking for bird feces to avoid. And it had no longer meant that he needed to wash if he had touched it he had now been afraid of even seeing it.
So it was time to put it all to an end. I sure would miss all the hand washing but the torment that he was feeling about the possibility that he could get some of it in the eye and go blind was enough for me to put my selfish desires about hand washing aside. I sat him down and told him something like he needed to stop worrying about it so much and I assured him that he would probably be just fine without all the hand washing.

Maybe this story has just bored you but it was fun for me to visit it.

I think that some people do need to make sure that their conscience isn’t stunting their life. And when we make unknowingly a suggestion that is causing torment in some lovely person who has a beautifully overactive conscience we should help them examine it. As well as the person who is not living up to their conscience. The middle ground is probably the best place to be.

Moral of your story: Makes one think that a person's conscience is taught.I thought your story was funny, but how true. calledoutPTL

Paris, I loved your story.

Thanks arm and calledOut.