DEAR DIARY

THE ISSUE OF GUILT

 

We often find ourselves feeling guilty.  Growing up Catholic it wasn’t hard to be familiar with the term,

I even felt guilty in my teens coming back from Confession cause I “withheld” some sins from the Priest

and told him only the good ones I could look him in the eye with. Surely I wasn’t gonna tell

him I gossiped just on my way to church! haha  Years later and after spending time with other

religious beliefs and non-religious cultures & even the family unit I realize that guilt seems

to be a fairly common emotion among human beings.

Guilt is something we can bring upon ourselves by continuously dwelling on our actions

which may have adversely affected somebody, or guilt can be felt when someone else makes

us aware of what we did to them.  I have also seen that guilt can be exploited to keep us in a perpetual

state of gratefulness to someone for their benevolence in a situation or exploited by religious

Orders and Sects into getting us to do things we otherwise would not do, but do it anyway

for the sake of the greater good.

 

What I wonder though today is, apart from the reasons for guilt that exist, is guilt a wasted emotion?

Is it easier to live with the guilt of what we have done or harder to confront the challenge of moving

past it? Guilt, like regret should have a time limit in my opinion. Find whatever you are guilty of and

see about doing something better, like changing the reason for its existence. Is that easier said than

done though, I wonder?

MAH MEKOLLE