Guilt

I'll be honest; this one makes me nervous. It feels like a level of sharing that is perhaps too much. Even as I have moved beyond the feelings discussed below, exposing this part of myself that I worked so hard to hide feels...reckless.

But I think these thoughts are important and worth sharing. We all hope to find ourselves--to whatever extent possible--in the lives and stories of others; perhaps that's all writing really comes down to as well. Hoping that someone will find themselves in you.

I am 26-years-old and thus far my life has been without suffering. I am attempting to say this with as little extravagance or affect as possible recognizing the dual perils of seeming to glorify pain (which I have not known) or trumpet my blessings (which have been many). I have, simply put, lived a life of comfort and security and avoided the realities which afflict so many on this earth that were I to begin listing countries, cities, communities, and people which/who specifically come to mind, this piece would lose all cogency and descend into a nearly endless string of commas and proper nouns.

Now you may perhaps be a kind, gentle, and fair-minded reader who upon absorbing that first paragraph found yourself objecting to this characterization of my life; I must undoubtedly have known some hurt in my 26+ years of living. You may even know me personally and can pull specific up examples with which to prompt me; “you are not being fair to yourself” you’d say. This is true and yet also, totally, patently false. I have, of course, known other human emotions beyond joy but to characterize my life as anything approaching one of suffering is an insult to anyone who has seen the darkest places humanity can offer. I have never wanted for food. I have never run for my life. I have never slept in inadequate shelter and I do not know what a dignity-reducing lack of privacy entails. I have never been raped. I have never been wracked by a chronic illness nor been betrayed by my body or mind in any meaningful way. Whatever pain I have known has been limited in scope and, generally speaking, temporary in nature.

And yet despite all this good fortune I have frequently found myself in the curious position of personal anguish concerning all that I have been given: I feel guilty. For accidents of geography. For the fortunes of family. For the luck of privilege. I am well aware of the manifold blessings that have fallen upon me and I am not naive enough nor presumptuous enough to believe that I have earned my place in the world. “Why me?” is most often a plaintive cry associated with heart-ache or perceived injustice but I have frequently found myself torn up by the very things that are supposed bring me joy and security. I have agonized over random chance and the unbelievable hand I’ve been dealt, and I’ve berated myself up for wasted opportunities and a sense that I was not using my gifts to their fullest potential. At my worst moments I hated myself for not doing enough (though exactly what “enough” was was unclear) and came to doubt my essential goodness believing that I was a stunted, ill-formed person--selfish and broken beyond retrieval. 

After years of ignoring these thoughts through whatever distractions I could muster I went to a therapist (only possible through the generosity and understanding of my parents--another potential source of guilt) and began to tackle what this feeling was and why it was so firmly embedded in my sense of self. It was through this process that I began to recognize that I was being more than a little unfair to myself and that my skewed internal logic was far from the reality that most others experienced; that not only was I a person worthy of all the love and support I was baffled to find myself receiving but that what provided such great worry and anxiety to me was in fact something that most people didn’t bother themselves too much with. Life was good to them and they accepted their blessings without complaint. 

I tried to move beyond my guilt, accepting all that I have and am as one more product of an illogical world (but one that I had no hand in creating). I tried to embrace these blessings without criticism or torment (particularly aware of how ungrateful I could seem to anyone living in more insecure circumstances). I tried to just be; to live in the world as it is, no more or less responsible for my life than anyone else. That, as you might have guessed, did not work. 

In the past year or so that I have finally stopped trying to avoid this guilt, stopped running from my own instincts and accepted these thoughts for what they are: an intrinsic part of me and not necessarily one to be swept under a rug. It had been my assumption that because my guilt (which would frequently spiral into feelings of self-loathing) was a source of unhappiness it was inherently a bad thing; that my basic project of self-improvement hinged on ridding myself of these masochistic impulses and their primary driver. If I could understand and label my guilt, recognizing it for it was--illogical and unhelpful, as I saw it at the time--I would finally be able to move beyond this sense of being “less than” and blossom into a regular, happy person, etc. THE END. 

It is in embracing my guilt that I have finally been able to move beyond myself and focus on whatever I can accomplish with whatever means I possess. By accepting the basic validity of some of these thoughts--though not necessarily their most extreme conclusions--I am less beholden to them; I am more willing to make sacrifices and try new things, allowing for the possibility of failure but not necessarily viewing that as a catastrophe nor an indictment of my capabilities. Guilt motivates me. And admitting that gives it less power and gives me the freedom to see just what I am capable of.