As we have discussed, we are beings for whom consciousness (at the conceptual level) is volitional. This means that the design of our nature contains an extraordinary option—that of seeking awareness or not bothering (or actively avoiding it), seeking truth or not bothering (or actively avoiding it), focusing our mind or not bothering (or choosing to drop to a lower level of consciousness). In other words, we have the option of exercising our powers or of subverting our means of survival and well-being. This capacity for self-management is our glory and, at times, our burden. Through the thousands of choices we make between thinking and nonthinking, being responsible toward reality or evading it, we establish a sense of the kind of person we are. Consciously, we rarely remember these choices. But deep in our psyche they are added up, and the sum is that experience we call “self-esteem.” Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves. We are not all equal in intelligence, but intelligence is not the issue.
The principle of living consciously is unaffected by degrees of intelligence. To live consciously means to seek to be aware of everything that bears on our actions, purposes, values, and goals—to the best of our ability, whatever that ability may be—and to behave in accordance with that which we see and know.