Warning: Article may be too long & not for the feint hearted, the exit is to your right should you decide to leave.
Guilt is one of those emotions that’s not worth the time & energy it consumes. We spend so much time sweating over what we’ve done/did or should have done but didn’t do.
It is such a heavy emotion that weighs on our souls while it selfishly looks u squarely in the face & says “Deal with me or else I’m not leaving”. It consumes your head space and renders you restless, unfocused and often scatter brained and oblivious of the world around you.
When truly submerged in this feeling of guilt we tend to not see beyond it’s overbearing presence & make peace with ourselves by accepting that what’s done is done and if people could change the past, life as we know it would have ended because we’d all be stepping back in time in an effort to do things differently.
A number of experiences and emotions come to mind as I write about this topic but before I get too carried away here are some examples of this menacing emotion:
If-I-work-harder-one-day it’ll be alright kinda guilt.
A father who works long hours and is never home with his children often ends up over compensating by lavishing his children with gifts to ease the guilt he feels for not being there for them (before the feminists bay for my blood the same can be said for a hard working mother).
Quality time is replaced with fancy gadgets and cash & that smile he sees on his children’s faces eases the guilt –if only for a second. This drives him to work extra hard to keep up this lifestyle that he & his family have become accustomed to, which results in even longer hours spent away from them.
This father dreams of the day he’ll be able to provide without having to slave away hours on end at the cost of his relationship with his family. The guilt gnaws at his soul because how dare he not work hard to be the provider he’d always wanted to be. This cycle is a self perpetuating one and I don’t see how this poor man can do this without feeling even an iota of guilt.
Tear-u-up-inside-kinda guilt.
A newly married couple who keep trying to have a baby but are unable to. Stay with me here, in all their years of sexual activity they’ve made an effort to play it safe and not have a baby out of wedlock. The husband recounts (privately) the number of times he’s rushed to the chemist to get his woman the morning after pill or the times he’s left money for it to be bought. He remembers these times now more than ever before as he yearns for a child because those were times when he potentially could have been a father.
He remembers even more sorely the times he’s been the financier of the termination of pregnancy. The time when he wasn’t ready to be a father and she (lady friend/partner) not ready to be a mother & they’d agreed to terminate. The guilt gnaws at his existence because the one thing he longs for more than life itself is to procreate and have someone call him “dad”. He sees his peers having kids and wonders when his turn will come or if it ever will.
A flood of unwelcome emotions is taking over and heading the pack is that menacing guilty feeling. Let me sign off now and maybe you’ll share your experiences or feelings regarding your experiences with GUILT.
PS: If you have nothing to say please DO FEEL GUILTY coz it’s only fair to share.
PPS: if anyone takes offence to this article I apologise in advance..:-)
36 Comments
Only TVSA members can reply to this thread. Click here to login or register.