Every time you learn something new, you expand or improve your conscience. You see how some things improve in ways you didn’t previously realize, and you see how some things cause harm in ways you didn’t previously realize. Your understanding of right and wrong is changed. With these changes, you receive opportunities to reconcile your actions, thoughts, and desires to your improved conscience.
Your conscience is your compass that guides you to the best life:
Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye (your conscience) is sound and fulfilling its office, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound and is not fulfilling its office, your body is full of darkness. (Luke 11:34, AMP)
Your conscience is what lays out the path to greater joy. Obeying your conscience is the key to perfect peace. “All the days of the afflicted are evil; but a good conscience is a continual feast.” (Proverbs 15:15, 1599 Geneva Bible)
When you are completely reconciled to your conscience, you enjoy all the positive consequences of the principles you live. You are enabled to have joy equal and opposite to the depths of suffering you have encountered because, having learned the principles that overcome that suffering, you can now comprehend, value, and appreciate all the benefits of having done so.
Everyone’s conscience tells them right from wrong at their degree of understanding, no matter if they are religious or not:
He will punish sin wherever it is found. He will punish the heathen when they sin, even though they never had God’s written laws, for down in their hearts they know right from wrong. God’s laws are written within them; their own conscience accuses them, or sometimes excuses them. And God will punish the Jews for sinning because they have his written laws but don’t obey them. They know what is right but don’t do it. After all, salvation is not given to those who know what to do, unless they do it. (Romans 2:12-15, Living Bible)
When you disobey your conscience, you experience guilt. The opposite of this guilt is joy:
Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all men; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience. (Alma 29:5)
All that matters in life is the degree to which you follow your conscience, and the degree to which you expand it by how you seek and react to new information. While this may seem a bold claim, realize that everything good in this life is obtained to the extent that you follow your conscience. It is your individual roadmap to the maximal joy that is available. It will lead you precisely where you need to travel to encounter the greatest joy.
Too much unhappiness and guilt exist in this life because of this simple fact: we have too much concern about what other people think is right, and too little concern about what our own conscience says is right: “...Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.” (Malachi 2:16, New English Translation)
Your path may not obviously intersect with anyone else’s. Conventional wisdom is wonderfully successful in one thing: producing people who are just like everyone else. If you want to be miserable, divorced, and poor, then by all means get and follow conventional wisdom. If you desire something better than what most people have, you must by definition find a path that is better than most people follow.
What other people think is right will never free you from the guilt you will feel about something your conscience incessantly cries is wrong:
The spirit (conscience) of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching and examining all the innermost parts of his being. (Proverbs 20:27, AMP)
What other people think is wrong will never free you from the small voice inside you that incessantly whispers there is something more than what other people think and do: “Now, there was a punishment affixed, and a just law given, which brought remorse of conscience unto man.” (Alma 42:18)
Following your conscience at all times and in all places will give you immense peace that is independent from anything anyone or anything can do to you:
And, beloved, if our consciences (our hearts) do not accuse us [if they do not make us feel guilty and condemn us], we have confidence (complete assurance and boldness) before God... (1 John 3:21, AMP)
Following your conscience without exception will free you from the guilt you feel when you don’t do the best you know how to do and from the guilt you feel when you realize you are different than what others want you to be and do. It will free you from the anxiety you feel when the small voice inside you tells you there is something better out there than what you have, because you will know that you are firmly on the path to obtaining it.