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Regret and moving forward

I was once socially retarded.  I am better now, much better, but I still make mistakes.  Recently I inconvenienced someone as a result of some inaccurate assumptions I had made, and felt bad about it.  Actually, there are two errors I have in mind, the details of which are irrelevant.  Sorry doesn’t really rectify the “imbalance”, but at the same time beating yourself up doesn’t, either.

Psychologically normal people feel guilt when they screw up, but I would argue there are two ways to feel guilt.  The first is to exaggerate it, to really beat yourself up, but not address the underlying psychological cause of the error.  I would suspect that the people most riddled with guilt are the ones most unwilling to delve deeper into how their psyches ACTUALLY work.  Woody Allen?  Likely a sociopath, whose obsession with guilt masks a lack of actual conscience.  He obsessed for a period of time over guilt for the very simple reason that he didn’t actually feel it.

The second approach is to recognize that it is good that our unconscious incents us to do the right thing by providing negative feedback, but the more important task is to grow out of our ways.  In the case I mentioned initially, my default assumption was that I could hitch a ride with someone who was already going my way, and thus might not need a rental car.  This was an invalid assumption, and one based on the idea that I might not need to be self sufficient.

Because I DID need to be self sufficient to avoid inconveniencing someone, what I see now is that self sufficiency in many respects is an act of generosity.  To the extent you do not NEED others, you are in a better position simply to enjoy their company, and value the experiences as it unfolds.

I will have more to say on this topic, but this was on my mind today, and I wanted to let it go.  I have found that processing things makes them go away.  That leaves room for more insights.