Guilt

Guilt is a heavy burden to carry. It sometimes consumes the barer to the point that surpasses any understanding. The problem with guilt is that we feel guilty for feeling guilty. The world we live in encourages freedom of thought and deed. But in reality we are trapped by the guilt of years of doing what ever we want and not caring who we hurt. And then one day we realize that all of those now nameless people we have hurt, scared, left behind, were some of the most important.

We turn our backs on our parents because society says if you have trouble it’s probably your parents fault for screwing you up. There might be real situations where the parents are completely toxic. But, really, they are your parents. All that is required is that, if they raised you, you treat them respectfully. You do not put them in rest homes and forget about them simply because you never out grew your teenage angst.

We cheat on our spouses and our friends. Why? Well, we are told that there is always something better waiting. We don’t have to treat people respectfully because there are always ten more waiting. And then we find ourselves very alone.

Defensive like children we walk around angry and out of sorts with our lives. Every person thinks they are the only one who counts. Crimes of all sorts seem to be on the rise. And not just the run of the mill crimes...Disturbingly violent crimes are seemingly more and more in the news.

I wonder if someone went to all of the people they may have hurt went and apologized. I wonder what a difference that would make.