Guilt is pretty much bullshit. Sadness seems legit, as does disappointment, but I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on guilt.
Now, if you rob a bank, you're guilty, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm referring to that self-imposed sentence of walking around feeling bad about not feeling bad. Ok, so I'm rationalizing here, but that's what I do - I "use my words".
The short version is that right now I'm feeling pretty O.K. about life, even though I have this lingering sense of guilt about not feeling badly. You know, your typical upper-middle-class-gen-X-quasi-protestant-white-self-loathing tendency to doubt one's own sanity for feeling happy. I'm conditioned to feel selfish, guilty, and wrong for enjoying my life and it's privileges.
But I don't. I feel happy that I'm starting to live a life that's enjoyable, to have and follow dreams of fulfillment and action, to boldly go where no one has gone before. I have mentioned melodramatic, too? There's that.
I refuse to let negative conditioning bring me down, and if that makes me selfish, then I guess I am. I regret only that my choices may have caused others sadness, but I've done my very best for as long as I possibly could, and I will allow myself that redemption. My responsibilities now are strictly to myself, and to be true to that which makes me whole. Guilt is bullshit, and I'm done with it.
Now, if you rob a bank, you're guilty, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm referring to that self-imposed sentence of walking around feeling bad about not feeling bad. Ok, so I'm rationalizing here, but that's what I do - I "use my words".
The short version is that right now I'm feeling pretty O.K. about life, even though I have this lingering sense of guilt about not feeling badly. You know, your typical upper-middle-class-gen-X-quasi-protestant-white-self-loathing tendency to doubt one's own sanity for feeling happy. I'm conditioned to feel selfish, guilty, and wrong for enjoying my life and it's privileges.
But I don't. I feel happy that I'm starting to live a life that's enjoyable, to have and follow dreams of fulfillment and action, to boldly go where no one has gone before. I have mentioned melodramatic, too? There's that.
I refuse to let negative conditioning bring me down, and if that makes me selfish, then I guess I am. I regret only that my choices may have caused others sadness, but I've done my very best for as long as I possibly could, and I will allow myself that redemption. My responsibilities now are strictly to myself, and to be true to that which makes me whole. Guilt is bullshit, and I'm done with it.
