Freedom from Guilt

I've always had an overwhelming sense of guilt about everything and while I usually blame the holy water the Church used to baptize me (Catholics always feel so guilty about everything that I think the Church found a way to liquefy guilt and passes it off as holy water), I know that this is just to try to be funny about my overweening sense of guilt.

Guilt is a perfectly useless emotion. It does no one any good. Consider why someone feels guilt. It's usually because one didn't conform to the expectations of other people, or society, or religion. In other words. we feel guilty for not being perfect in the eyes of external actors and, hence, oneself. That's alot of power to give away to others. Do the truly empowered and self aware feel guilt. Moreover, we tend to love our guilt. We dwell on it and nurture it into a truly raging case of self-loathing. Guilt is useless because it's both self-absorbed and gives us an excuse not to be happy, healthy, and whole. We tell ourselves we don't deserve it. If we deserved happines, we wouldn't feel so guilty. Talk about circular reasoning. Why should anyone feel that they need to sacrifice themselves to be worthy human beings.

I had a small epiphany on guilt this weekend. Someone I briefly dated began calling me rather relentlessly. First it was to get back a bracelet. I don't want the bracelet and managed to drop it off to him. Then it was 'he wanted to see me.' I don't want him at my house. He won't leave and has no problem with using a great deal of coercion to get laid (and he is so bad at this that one would really rather go to the dentist). So I told him he could not come over but if he really needed to see me, I would meet him somewhere like a coffeeshop. The incessant calls stopped. I stopped feeling guilty that I didn't want to make myself miserable so he could use me. Unbelievably, that's what it took for me to really see my problem with guilt clearly. Do I really believe that I should be miserable?

It was a useful lesson though. Today, I'm going for a completely guilt free day. I am doing what I want, when I want--purely to please myself. In other words, I'm going to learn from my cat. Apparently she's smarter than I am.