I read this agony aunt answer to a question by a woman whose boyfriend had lied about something in his long past. It chimed with what I have been thinking about actions in our past that fill us with shame or at least regret to this day. All of us have wronged people in the past and many of us might not have made amends. In some cases, the people we wronged might not even be aware of it and might still be on friendly and trusting terms with us. So, what is to be done in such situations, if anything at all?
There was a line in the column that really struck a chord with me: So long as the only harm, if there is any, is to ourselves, I'd argue that we have a right to keep close to our chests whatever we choose, including less savoury behaviour. Of course, one might argue that it is not always easy to ascertain whether the harm is only to ourselves, but in our hearts of our hearts, one knows. Does this sound like a blanket amnesty, a convenient ruse for avoiding confessing to your mistakes? Well, at least for sensitive people, the guilt of having wronged someone is usually immense, so if you are such a person but you don't feel particularly guilty about some past action, I would say let sleeping dogs lie. Forking out a confession which distresses the person who didn't even know they had been wronged in a desperate attempt to salve your conscience is not an act of great moral courage, in my opinion. It is just stupid. And an important caveat--you are allowed to let it be only if you have changed your behaviour since and can say, with some confidence, that you would never do that again. In other words, if that act is firmly in your past.
I have a long and rocky relationship with guilt which I am trying to change since last year. I remember my last meeting with my counselor. I was in a situation with someone that was causing me a lot of guilt. After hearing me out, she told me that I had done nothing wrong and I was actually being gaslit by this person. She also told me that if one is in such a situation, there are only two options. Either remove yourself from that situation (if possible, and it was possible for me, in this case) or consciously make an effort to stop feeling guilty.
P.S.: It might be obvious that this post is based on something I have done in the past. But, since I have made peace with it and changed, I am not going to talk about it.
There was a line in the column that really struck a chord with me: So long as the only harm, if there is any, is to ourselves, I'd argue that we have a right to keep close to our chests whatever we choose, including less savoury behaviour. Of course, one might argue that it is not always easy to ascertain whether the harm is only to ourselves, but in our hearts of our hearts, one knows. Does this sound like a blanket amnesty, a convenient ruse for avoiding confessing to your mistakes? Well, at least for sensitive people, the guilt of having wronged someone is usually immense, so if you are such a person but you don't feel particularly guilty about some past action, I would say let sleeping dogs lie. Forking out a confession which distresses the person who didn't even know they had been wronged in a desperate attempt to salve your conscience is not an act of great moral courage, in my opinion. It is just stupid. And an important caveat--you are allowed to let it be only if you have changed your behaviour since and can say, with some confidence, that you would never do that again. In other words, if that act is firmly in your past.
I have a long and rocky relationship with guilt which I am trying to change since last year. I remember my last meeting with my counselor. I was in a situation with someone that was causing me a lot of guilt. After hearing me out, she told me that I had done nothing wrong and I was actually being gaslit by this person. She also told me that if one is in such a situation, there are only two options. Either remove yourself from that situation (if possible, and it was possible for me, in this case) or consciously make an effort to stop feeling guilty.
P.S.: It might be obvious that this post is based on something I have done in the past. But, since I have made peace with it and changed, I am not going to talk about it.
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