To “follow the crowd” means to go along with the majority—to “go with the flow.” It is conformity. Is following the crowd a good idea?

A recent study warns that “future crops will face threats… from the massive expansion of cities… By 2030, it’s estimated that urban areas will triple in size, expanding into cropland and undermining the productivity of agricultural systems that are already stressed… Roughly 60% of the world’s cropland lies on the outskirts of cities—and that’s particularly worrying, the report authors say, because this peripheral habitat is, on average, also twice as productive as land elsewhere on the globe” (

A new U.S. intelligence report predicts “[t]he risk of conflicts between and within nations will increase over the next five years to levels not seen since the Cold War as global growth slows, the post-World War Two order erodes and anti-globalization fuels nationalism” (Reuters, January 9, 2017).

Venezuela is descending into chaos! “President Nicolas Maduro announced Sunday that he has decided to raise the monthly minimum wage by 50 percent… the fifth that he has ordered over the past 12 months, for a total annualized increase of 536 percent” (Fox News, January  9, 2017).

A familiar companion to all of us, who live in this world, is our own personal conscience. It goes with us no matter where we go or what we do or how we act. Our conscience should be able to regulate our thoughts, our actions, our outlook on life, our relationships with others and who we really are inside.