"Do What You Think Is Right"

At one point in the Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, two main characters, both heroes, have a disagreement about what they should do. More specifically, one of them wants to do something and is trying to convince the other to help them. Upon failing at that, the first hero decides to proceed without the aid of the second, leaving the reluctant hero with some parting counsel: "Do what you think is right."

I think that this is good advice. So often, people do what they want to do of whatever they can get away with. Too few people take the time to consider what they should do. And when one does try to think of the right thing to do,they sometimes turn to the wrong sources to help them determine what the right course of action is. Sometimes, laws and religions can convince people to ignore their consciences and do what they're told is the right thing to do, no matter how strongly the Holy Spirit tries to persuade them against it. If people listened to their hearts and tried to do what's right, they'd do the right thing more frequently than they would be following their own desires or the counsel of others.

Still, the counsel of others shouldn't be completely discarded, and one's heart isn't infallible. Sometimes, what we think is the right thing to do actually isn't the right thing to do. That's why we should consider the counsel of others and check it against our own feelings. That way, the Holy Ghost will have an opportunity to testify of truths that we might otherwise have rejected. We should always follow our consciences, but there are times when our consciences are too vague or too easily swayed by our emotions, so we sometimes need good counsel to give us specific directions, though I still think we should only follow that direction if our hearts tell us we should.

Blindly following any given counsel is a bad idea, and blindly rejecting any given counsel can be even worse. Rather than waiting to be told what to do and then doing it (or doing the opposite or anything else), we should consider the counsel of others, check with the Spirit and our own feelings, and then "Do what [we] think is right."