Don't be Guilted

I have a few thoughts on the subject of guilt. Guilt is an emotion. Guilt is a weapon. Guilt can be felt. Guilt can be used. Guilt is a negative. But I find people act out of guilt and people conform due to guilt. And As I get older, I find more and more cases where people will guilt other people to doing things they may not really want to do and to get "their way."

There is an argument, however, that guilt can be an internal alarm saying "Well MAYBE you should or shouldn't be doing this, and that is why you are feeling guilty!" Ehhhhhhh....I don't know about that. I am not dismissing that idea, but through my own experiences and the experiences I have witnessed with others, I do not see how guilt has been a positive alarm for anyone.

Remember, one can figure out if they are thinking positively or negatively by the way they feel. And you know which is which because one makes you feel good (the positive thoughts) and one makes you feel bad (the negative thoughts). So how does guilt make you feel? I don't know about you but it doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Guilt is a negative emotion. And when one feels guilty, it causes doubt and then fear can set in.

If we know right from wrong, nine out of ten times we will not feel the negative emotion of guilt. In the few times it is set as an alarm to tell you that you're doing something wrong, you can reassess and make a new choice. But I mentioned how guilt can be used as a weapon. This is something I strongly dislike and on two different ends: I dislike how people use guilt to make other people do things and I also hate how people ALLOW guilt to control their decisions for them.

I know people who play the guilt trip with snide remarks, the woe is me, or the you never do anything, to the point where you will never win. But I was told that RESPONSIBILITY means ability to RESPOND. So those who allow other people (whether it be your friends, your parents, your colleagues, your cousins, etc) take responsibility and don't let people guilt you in or out of what you want to do. Act because you WANT to, and because you feel it is RIGHT, not because someone else tells you.

When people try to get you to do something through guilt, it is usually because they have an agenda, and they are convinced of something, but not necessarily are right. I would say not necessarily wrong either, however, when people are doing the right thing, they don't guilt other people into doing things. They also step back and let people make their own decisions and when it is the right choice, I am told they always find their way. To work to convince would be counter-productive.

Make your own decisions because they are right. Not just because you are influenced by the ones closest to you by guilt. When people work to create negative emotions for a result, the results are usually negative in some form whether you see it or not.

Yours in service,
ANDREW TRENTO