Guilt.

Here are some exerps lifted from Wikipedia:

Guilt is primarily an emotion experienced by people who believe they have done something wrong. From a legal perspective it can also refer to the condition of having done something legally wrong, regardless of how one feels about it.

Some thinkers have theorized that guilt is used as a tool of social control. Since guilty people feel they are undeserving, they are less likely to assert their rights and prerogatives. Thus, those in power seek to cultivate a sense of guilt among the populace, in order to make them more tractable.

Guilt can sometimes be remedied by punishment (a common action and advised or required in many legal and moral codes), by forgiveness (as in transformative justice), or by sincere remorse (as with confession in Catholicism or restorative justice).

Psychopaths typically exhibit a "lack of remorse or guilt" in the face of wrongdoing. This is seen by psychologists as part of a lack of moral reasoning in comparison with the majority of humans, an inability to evaluate situations in a moral framework and an inability to develop emotional bonds with other people.

thats enough from Wikipedia.

i believe guilt can be mirror'd with pain.

if you didn't feel pain (as in physical pain), you wouldn't know when to take your hand out of the fire. and you'll probably just burn to death.

guilt keeps you human. it keeps you grounded. it could even be seen as a tool for survival (you can't just keep fucking people over - eventually, all the shit catches up with you).

it reminds you to think twice before doing something. the evident difference from the reference i make to pain - is that chances are, you'll get burned first - before guilt comes in. as opposed to 'pain' which hits more directly and is more immediate in nature.

bearing that in mind, most of the time, i know guilt will be an inevitable consequence of some of my actions at times. does that necessarily mean i did the wrong thing? haven't you ever been in a situation where doing the right thing will most definitely lead to guilt?

this beckons to mind a phrase i lifted off someplace - "sometimes you win only to lose and sometimes you lose - so that you can win."

it is without a doubt that i carry within me a certain amount of weight that is made up entirely of guilt. to say that i am proud of that baggage would be wrong. however, to say that i regret having made those decisions would be equally, if not even more, wrong.

i've suffered losses (some really big losses - some of which i probably can never be forgiven), so that i can win.

this phrase is lifted from 'THE LIBERTINE' - a freaking awesome movie i have only just watched moments before typing this out, "Any experiment of interest in life will be carried out at your own expense."

i shall now vary that phrase to fit my own little blabber of a post here, "Any lesson worth learning in life can sometimes only be learnt at your own expense."

guilt is a lesson for the soul.

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before i sign off, here is some food for thought: Why and how do good people end up in hell?

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good people end up in hell because they failed to forgive themselves in life.

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