Drawing the Line

We must emphatically know where to draw the line.
Though worldly enjoyment, riches, and/or temptations might await on the other side of that line, if these are obtained at the expense of our ethics, morals, honesty, integrity, or other higher convictions, then these ill-gotten treasures must be avoided at all costs. In the end we lose more than we gain.

I believe most of our societal problems stem from this basic premise. Our excesses; thievery; murders; addictions; cravings; lusts; lifestyles; and other carnality happen because we do not hold a conviction greater than our base desires. Though we might not personally commit each and every type of crime, our guilt is in either giving approval to, or breaking down the lines which give license for others to do so. Guilt by association raises it's ugly head.

Without moral, ethical convictions, our vision predominantly views gray areas of right and wrong. These 'everything is okay' grays blur the black and the white into a muddy, confusing neutral. The end result is we do not have a precise line of which we will not cross... and we ridicule and disrespect those who do. We have, "eyes that will not see and ears that do not hear."

Where do you draw the line?