The Little Voice in Your Head

Reading Time: 4 minutes
Illustration by Dana AlAttar (@DanaAlAttar)
Illustration by Dana AlAttar (@DanaAlAttar)

The Roman Philosopher Lucius Seneca once said, “Every guilty person is his own hangman, ” and his choice of wording was spot-on. The thing that maintains our humanity and morality is our sense of righteousness and our ability to know the difference between right and wrong. It is that little voice in our head that keeps us on track, and even if we tend to ignore it a lot, the fact that we can still hear it means that our humanity is still intact.

Some psychologists tend to refer to people who suffer from Antisocial Personality Disorders as “Sociopaths.” Those are the people who have a condition of a missing conscience. It happens at a time we lose the feeling of guilt when we hurt someone, the feeling of remorse when we commit a crime, or the feeling of sympathy when someone dies; which is when we have then reached a dangerous place where we can no longer hear that little voice in our head.

“Every man is guilty of the good he did not do,” (Voltaire). Believe it or not, there are murderers who can still access their conscience, they show remorse in the way they kill their victims; either by covering the victims’ eyes, or positioning them in a certain way after their death, burying them, or closing their eye-lids. Yes! It is shocking that someone who is capable of taking a life can still be called “humane”. Instead of giving up on those people, psychologists found out that they can still be saved from themselves.

“A guilty conscience needs to confess, a work of art is a confession,” (Albert Camus, French philosopher). Artists tend to express their guilt in their own way; many drawings, sculptures, paintings, and movies turn out to be a confession by the artist. The same thing can be said about poems and novels. We all commit crimes, some bigger than others, and for most of us, we feel so guilty that we need to let it out before that guilt explodes within us.

Confession Drawing - Confession Fine Art Print - Ulysses Albert III
Confession Drawing – Confession Fine Art Print – Ulysses Albert III

The next time we are about to do something and we hear that voice that tells us to do otherwise, we should probably give it more of our attention because believe it or not, it is always right. Every time we choose to ignore it, our moral compass loses balance. Today, I’ll find some cash and won’t try to find the owner, tomorrow I’ll borrow some money and not give back, the next day I’ll steal a few bucks from here and a few from there; our actions develop and escalate depending on how we direct them.

Today I find myself in a place I would’ve never imagined being in a couple of months ago. When I’m doing something wrong, I feel guilty every single second, but that sense of guilt fades away when I become used to doing the wrong thing. So my advice to myself and to you dear reader is to listen to that voice; you hear it in your head but it comes from your heart. It’s a gift to have it on our side and let’s hope none of us ever lose it.

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11 Comments

  • Dear Hamda,
    The article was very moving in the way that it explained what our concience is and how it appears to us. I just don't why they call it a voice. Because for me it is actually a feeling in my gut. I would love to see a continuation article on how do you discover your inner concience and how do you start analyzing what it is saying, because I think many people are incapable of that.

    Thank you for yet another nice article!

    • Dear MMM,

      Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I love your suggestion and I'll be sure to write a continuation article on this one.

  • Like MMM mentioned above, our conscience can come in different ways, and although we ignore it sometimes, it remains the reason behind most of the good choices we've made in our lives.

    Enjoyed the article and nice choice for your topic

  • very interesting article and a good reminder to follow that gut instinct which is usually right!I think the head must have the winning vote over the heart because the heart can lead you astray with your desires whilst the mind will always give you sensible reasoning!

    • Dear Nadine,

      I couldn't agree more! I myself am one of those people who always follow their head not their heart.

      Thank you for your comment ^_^

  • Never ignore the instinct you feel when you're about to give into temptation. Its the start to a pattern full of wrong doings, and the worst feeling you can ever counter is knowing that you are capable of doing bad things. Guilt free!

    • Dear Shaima,

      That's very true! They say you should always sit at the end of the day and think about all the wrongs you've done, i haven't done that in a long time, and when I did I noticed how I've been making so many bad choices, which is what inspired the article.

      Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

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