There are many reasons for this. In another article, I explored why worry is a barrier to happiness. This is a barrier almost everyone sets up I their lives – some more than others. I reject absolutely that any of us has anything to worry about, and that we should consign worry to the trash.

Another, and more pernicious, barrier is guilt. When we do something we believe to be wrong, we often punish ourselves with feelings of guilt, as if this can somehow make things better. But what is guilt really doing to us? Is it a useful response to a situation; can it have any practical purpose?

Our world is full of people who have done the most terrible things, and people continue to commit atrocities every day.

People guilty of wrongdoing tend to respond in one of two ways. The first is to focus on the reasons behind the action, and to construct excuses and rationalizations. The corrupt government official will say ‘everyone else is doing it – I just don’t want to lose out.’ The soldier who has executed civilians will say ‘I was just obeying orders.’ The excuses are endless – ‘I was brainwashed. I was young and naive. I was high on drugs. I didn’t have a good education. I was a victim of abuse. I didn’t want to get left behind.’

This response is a way of avoiding feelings of guilt – there is an attempt to suppress the negative feelings that would arise if the truth were faced for fear of the pain those feelings would bring.
The other response is to dwell on feelings of guilt. This, perhaps, is an attempt to punish ourselves for the wrong we have done.
Neither response is a good one, since both are essentially about bad feelings. There is a better response, which does not allow us to abdicate responsibility for the consequences of our choices and does not require us to be condemned to a life of guilt.

I firmly believe that people are doing the best they can. Nobody sets out to be an evil, wicked person. Nobody wants to be corrupt and abusive. Nobody wants to fail.

I have made many mistakes in my life. We all have. Out of ignorance, thoughtfulness, greed and stupidity, we have let people down, we have hurt others and ourselves, and we have failed in many other ways. In the beautiful words of the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer, ‘We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done.’

I suggest that if wrong has been done, we should face up to it. We should be honest with ourselves and admit that we have made a poor choice – we have experienced the pain of making such an unskillful choice, and so we have learned to make a better decision in the future. We can move on with life, resolved to do better.

This is not a moral statement – it is a pragmatic one: seeking out joy and avoiding pain is the best way to live.

I am not in the business of making moral judgments, but I am in the business of doing what works. Facing up to our poor choices, being honest about them and resolving to make better choices in the future – this is better for us and it is better for the whole world.

To hide behind excuses is to fail to learn from our poor choices – or mistakes, if you prefer to call them that. And to fail to learn from our poor choices condemns us to a lifetime of making poor choices and therefore to a lifetime of pain. To dwell on feelings of guilt also keeps us stuck in a rut of bad feeling.

We are responsible for the consequences of our choices – this is a fact. It seems to me that life is about learning how to make better and better choices. We never stop learning. Oh, and sometimes we learn very slowly!