Two Little Words: Good and Evil

I have always wondered what it is about good and evil that make them so popular. Why do people try to classify every action, every person, and everything into these two categories? Does everything in this world, or any other, really fall into such black and white areas? I myself really don't think so. I also think to dictate your entire life and all actions by these two rather small words is a great injustice. Living life with two options seems too dry and uninteresting.

In wondering these things, I often find myself asking, "What happened to the religions and the beliefs that called for a balance?" After all, doesn't the earth show us that a balance of some kind is necessary? We must balance our sleeping and awake time in order to live and to be productive. We can't sleep too much or too little or we suffer negative consequences. We also need to balance our diet. Too much of one thing can cause health problems as well as too little of something in our diet can cause health problems. Why isn't the same any longer so in our actions? Some would say doing evil things would make you an evil person. I cheated on a math test in sixth grade. Does that make me evil? I don't think so. I think remembering my indiscretion gives me a reason to be humble. I also think it helped me learn a valuable lesson. Even though I didn't get caught cheating I had to lie to explain all the other grades I got in math that year. Not an easy thing to do. I finally told the truth and I felt better. I didn't feel bad about cheating mind you, I felt overwhelmed with keeping to my lie. It was just easier to be done with the whole thing. Now helping people has always been viewed as a good thing. What if I help someone murder someone else? Is it still a good thing? Of coarse not, but what if the person murdered was a rapist? Some would say that was a good deed done, some would still consider it evil.

I guess what I am trying to say is that people put way too much stock into what others consider to be good and evil. I believe if less time were spent on these two little words that somebody else dictates to us, people on a whole would progress quicker. Less conflict would arise from say, coming up with an individual balance and sticking to it. Also if our actions were not so heavily labeled, people would have less fear of condemnation. Less fear, in my opinion, equals more exploration of who we really are, individually as well as on the whole of the human race.