Failsafe

I was having a conversation with a close friend today. We'd just heard about the Dustin Lance Black incident and were curious about the photos. I'm terribly ashamed to say that I went to Perez Hilton's site. Gross, right?

Anyhow, the pictures are not out there. I imagine they've all been taken down and the ones I saw in blogs had been censored. After one attempt to find them I stopped. It was wrong. It was terrible of me to have any interest in them in the first place. Invading someone's privacy to satiate my morbid curiosity is despicable. It's morally wrong. I reached this conclusion with a quick Golden Rule check. If photos of me having sex with my boyfriend had been leaked online, would I want someone looking at them? Hell no.

So, as I continued talking to my friend (via messenger) I noticed he was distracted. I asked if he was still looking for the photos and he said yes. I exploded. I whipped out the soapbox, stood on my moral high ground, and told him off. I was honestly shocked that he was still looking for them. Also, I am certain he will persist in searching for them despite my whole Golden Rule explanation (I quoted Jesus and Rabbi Hillel for Pete's sake!). The fact is, he does not think it's that big a deal. He will rationalize it away as something not that bad because he's not hurting anyone, everyone has already seen them, he's curious, etc.

Now, lest you think I'm blasting my friend I must get to my point. Being the obnoxious, introspective person I am, I examined my own heart. What excuses do I make to rationalize things away? The answer is plenty.

I am in debt. Debt I should not be in. I understand it is bad. I live beyond my means. Everytime I talk about my debt I'm quick to say "it's not that much" or "it's school debt" or "I'm in better financial shape than most of my friends", "my job is secure", "I only graduated a year ago", on and on.

Bullshit. All of it. These are excuses I use to make myself feel better. If I was to honestly confront this debt I would see it was bad and needs to be eliminated. But, being human, my brain rationalizes it away to minimize cognitive dissonance. It keeps me from going insane (which I do appreciate). However, sometimes this natural "failsafe" needs to be overridden so that I can do the right thing.

I do the same kind of rationalization with numerous other things (like exercising, volunteering, eating meat). I take the easy way out more often than not.

What must we do to override the "failsafe" in order to truly do the moral (or in some cases just better) thing?