The Emotion of Guilt and Doing your "best".

Too often on our search for inner peace we tend to look only inward rather than at our world as a whole. When I say this, I am not referring to the “earth” as a whole, with all of its problems and pains, but only of the individual’s world, which includes everything that in some way has a real affect on it. People may think that an earthquake in China has a real affect on them and their lives but the truth is it doesn’t. Think of it this way. In looking at everything that happens in the world, good or bad, ask yourself, “If I never learned of this, would it have any affect on my life?” If the answer is yes, this means that whatever the subject is will change how your life goes, either in the short term or long term. In that case, you need to pay attention to the subject and understand what is happening so you can make the most of the good and the least of the bad. For instance, if there is someone in your everyday life who is having a problem and if they do not find a solution it would mean them having to be away from work and pass their duties on to you, this would be something with a direct affect. If you read a story in a newspaper or see on TV a story about the collapse of a building in Russia in a town where neither you nor anyone you know has any connection, this would qualify as a story that can have no affect on your life. Why then do we spend so much time watching the pains of others each ad every day? Why are a huge number of the 80% club glued to televisions each night watching so called reality TV shows where the main sport is to pass judgment on others and revel in their pain and human suffering? The reasons are the same as they have always been, the same thing that causes people to slow down at an accident, or to find a connection between themselves and a victim, regardless of how remote.


It is our old Dog of Emotion once again, wrestling the reins from the Dog of Logic and pulling us to a place where before we know it, our lives are wrapped up so tightly in the pains and misfortunes of strangers that we forget the most important part of life which is to LIVE!

Life is not meant to be spent wallowing in the sufferings and sorrows of others. It is not meant to be spent on things like ridicule, arrogance or pompousness. A life lived this way is like an apple tree that has its water and sunlight cut off. It will wither and die and produce nothing of any good. Our human selves are no different. In order to be healthy, our human Dogs need a balanced diet of the right food for each in order for our inner selves to be at peace. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in humanitarianism and have always been involved in community work and philanthropic efforts, but I aim these within my own community first. A hungry child is a hungry child and location is irrelevant. Also irrelevant is the level of the tragedy or calamity. If there is a crisis somewhere in the world and I send $100 to an aid group to help, is this any better for the world than if I give the same $100 to a local charity in my home town? Or what if I simply gave the same $100 to a local family who was having hard times? Over the past many years the bulk of international fundraising has been passed from individual groups raising money and distribution things that could make a real difference to people in need, to a host of professional marketing companies who take a set percentage right off the top for overhead, management and employee salaries. They are corporate entities whose only business is convincing you to part with some of your hard earned money, not because they want to save the world, but because this is their job and they are well paid for it. I am not saying all aid agencies are bad, nor am I saying that people should not give to them, for this is a personal choice, but don’t ever think you are making a 100% “free” choice. By the time you write out your cheque to China, Word Hunger or Haiti, You will have been bombarded by so much media on the subject that most humans will feel embarrassed and very guilty if they do not.

Guilt…… possibly the most parasitic of all emotions our dog must deal with, is something which should be removed from any healthy human if his inner self is to be at all free. Some will argue that guilt is important for if a person feels guilty, it is probably because they have been lacking or have not done or said something they should have. Logic, if properly fed, will keep guilt in check and assure that it does not adversely affect the human self. Guilt is an emotion that should only ever be released by the Dog of Logic. It is an emotion that is only realistic if we know something important has to be done and make the conscious decision to avoid it. If you were supposed to talk to your sister on Tuesday evening but instead you had a glass of wine and read a book, letting the phone go to the answering machine, Your Dog of Logic will tell your Dog of Emotion to release feelings of guilt, both to remind you of your shortcoming in not taking the call, but also to assure the next time you will not make the same mistake for fear of more of the same feelings of guilt. This is how the Dog of Logic can help keep our human on the right path if we are in control of both it and the Dog of Emotion. It becomes our barometer of both our own true honesty and that which we show the world. If we look at the same scenario with your sister calling, but instead of drinking wine, reading a book and letting the phone ring, you were kept late at work and were not home when your sister called, should you still feel guilty? Of course you shouldn’t, but most humans will in this situation because they are not properly nourishing either of the Dogs of Logic nor Emotion. If the Dog of Logic was properly fed, it would make the human understand that there is no need for guilt because the problem did not occur through any malice or slacking off, but only due to human life and the hectic way it can play out at times. When Logic and Emotion are not properly fed, there can be no assessment of situations to determine what, if any emotion should be released to the human self. In this case, the Dog of Emotion will try to make the call on its own and will almost always choose to send more guilt out. Remember that the Dog of Emotion enjoys all emotions, the stronger the better. It likes to bark and bark and will do so relentlessly unless controlled by the Dog of Logic. This will leave your human in a very tough spot and serve only to keep your life in imbalance. Some people will say that guilt is good and that if one feels guilty it is because of something we have done or not done, but this is nonsense. Human’s have used guilt as a method of control since the dawn of awakening. I’m sure if we could travel back in time we would find a cave mother telling her little cave children that if they didn’t eat all of their Mammoth meat it would break her heart etc…… Guilt, like all of the other emotions, is just a part of our human psyche and does damage only when released by something other than a properly fed Dog of Logic. In fact, if all of a human’s Dogs are properly fed and on the right amount of leash, Logic will never have the need to release Guilt. If I know I am doing the best that I can and I know that I am a good soul, but also accept that my human has a kennel full of barking dogs that will, no matter how enlightened I may become, at times flick the ears of other humans and even of myself, there should never be the occasion where I feel the need to make my human self feel guilty. It is in, “doing our best” that most people have the biggest problem. We hear this from the time we are born and it becomes stronger with every year, especially through our impressionable school years. “Do your best!”, “You can do better than that”, “You’re not doing your best!” and so on are phrases that most of us hear throughout our lives. What no one will explain to us however is that our “best”, changes each and every minute of each and every day. Lets say I am a track runner and I set the world record for the 100 meter dash last month, but this month in the same race I not only don’t break the record but I place fourth overall. Does this mean I did not give my best effort in the second race. There are many who would say that this is true, and if you can break a record one day you are every bit as capable of doing it again every time if you “do your best”. This is absolute balderdash and has been the cause of more low self esteem that the use of skinny models. The truth is folks, that our “best” will change like the wind. Some days your best may allow you to win a race, land a deal, ace a test or what have you, and another day your best may be a D minus. One day your best may allow you to get up early and clean your house, yard and wash you car, and another day the best you can do may be to sit in your pajamas and watch movies. Accepting this is the first and critical step in freeing yourself from improper guilt. How can you feel truly good about yourself if you hold to the idea that your “best”, means “the” best. If you cling to this belief that everyone can succeed at anything if they only “do their best”, you will have a very hard time as you age and your life will be filled with feelings of guilt and lack of self worth. Can you imagine how a high school basketball star would feel if they were State champion in their senior year but never achieved any basketball fame beyond that? Would he feel alright with being a third stringer in college or would he think he was not doing his “best”?

If a human is to begin to understand who they are and what is inside them, they must first shake the idea that “their best” is a constant and that the only reason it changes is because of a lack of effort or focus. Our “best”, is a subjective file kept by those around us and one that we should never read. It is simply a part of our history and if you look back on your own and see times when you feel you were at “your best”, do not lament these times nor pine for their return. Stop calling them the “best” time or the “best I ever was”. Instead, look at them and say, wow, back then on that day, my best was good enough to mean something great and I will always remember it. We may have many “bests” throughout our lives in the myriad of human endeavors we attempt, but none of these occurrences has anything to do with the “best” of what is within us. For that, we must see all of the past “bests” for what they were and are, simply memories to be enjoyed but not dwelled on. It is the only way we can start to fully understand who we are and what is really important.

Now, go and do your “best”…………………………………