Only the Good Feel Guilty
Bad people don’t feel guilty. They are too busy being bad.
Good people feel guilty because they are good and they feel
they have done wrong, let somebody down, made a mistake,
or screwed up somewhere. Good people have a conscience.
Bad people don’t. If you do feel guilty, that’s a good sign. It
shows you are on the right track. But you have to know how
to deal with it, because guilt is a terribly selfish emotion. It is
wasteful and pointless.
We have two choices: put it right or dump the guilt. Yes, we
all make mistakes. We all screw up from time to time. We
don’t always do “the right thing.” And if we’ve got a con-
science, we will feel guilty sometimes. But guilt is utterly
pointless unless it is acted on for the better. You would be
better off feeling something else* if you aren’t going to act on
your guilt.
If you hang around feeling guilty but don’t do anything about
it, then it’s a waste of time and life.
The first thing to do is to assess whether you really need to
feel guilty. It could just be an overdeveloped conscience or
sense of duty. If you are the kind of person always to volun-
teer, but just this once you say “no,” then there is no need to
feel guilty. You’ll know deep down if you’ve earned this one
off. If you’ve a choice between doing something or not, then
it’s simple: do it or don’t do it but without guilt. Make the
- Self loathing, fear, panic—all good substitutes for guilt if you really must.
But better just to let it go.