Health education points out the dangers of over-indulgence in eating and drinking and sitting around. You may take the view that if you really like doing something, you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. Or you may think you should moderate your guilty pleasures when they negatively affect others. Then again you may think you ought … Continue reading Guilty feelings – Mistaken or helpful?
Tag: conscience
Guilt — Why won’t it go away?
Who hasn’t done something that they believe they should not have done? Kicked the cat? Stolen stationary from the office? Disclosed what a friend confided? Or whatever? Nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes, and do something wrong. And so from time to time you are likely to experience a feeling of guilt. It may … Continue reading Guilt — Why won’t it go away?
Heart warming story of honesty
What would you do if you found an envelope containing a fortune? This is what happened to Bismark Mensah. The Seattle Times first reported the story of how he spotted the envelope in a shopping trolley at his place of work. It had fallen out of a shopper’s purse. Imagine his amazement when he discovered … Continue reading Heart warming story of honesty
In a rut? Is life a slog? Time for inner change.
Are you finding the going a bit hard these days? Dissatisfied with life without knowing why? In a rut? “Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields” (John Steinbeck) Reasons for feeling in a … Continue reading In a rut? Is life a slog? Time for inner change.
Inconsistencies in the Bible – Why?
Don’t many people, who have given up on the Christian churches, just see inconsistencies in the Bible? Maybe. But the footballer Darren Bent doesn’t mind. He reads the Bible every day before he gets up and finds this has helped him cope with missing out on England’s Euro 2012 squad through injury. What makes this … Continue reading Inconsistencies in the Bible – Why?
Honesty – Is it really the best policy?
A lot of us have grown careless in what we say. “It wasn’t my fault we lost the game, I didn’t hear the whistle.” or “I was pushed over and my foot hurt.” Who has never made up an excuse to stop feeling embarrassed? This covering up may seem harmless enough but over time a … Continue reading Honesty – Is it really the best policy?
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Starring Shakespearian actor John Barrymore, and directed by John S Robertson, this silent movie version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was made in 1920 at Paramount’s Astoria studios New York and is the fourth of over 120 film versions of Robert Louis Stephenson’s macabre novel. It proved a tremendous success at the box office. The … Continue reading Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Flaws – Seeing the shadowy side of oneself.
Can I find forgiveness?
Spiritual healing can be needed for guilty feelings. Not all that is going on in our mind is the working of a true conscience. Some of us find ourselves at times on a guilt trip. Even if we have a sound mind, we may sometimes feel guilty over the smallest thing – without rhyme or reason painstakingly worried about something we have done that really is unimportant.
One example is children who, having been trained by their parents to follow certain rules, like never putting one’s elbows on the table at meal times – feel guilty when they have grown into adulthood feeling guilty if they ever break this rule. Other examples of illogical guilt are saying `sorry’ a lot of the time and unfairly criticising ourselves. Trying too hard to get friends to like us, feeling easily embarrassed when asking for favours or doing anything that might displease them.
Many hopelessly sick people feel constantly guilty. This may result from the suspicion that their sickness and fate are self-inflicted and their own fault. Alternatively, they may assume, more or less, the role of the utterly dependent child. Some consciously apologize for the trouble and fuss they are causing. (Our Western culture fosters a sense of guilt in most of us when illness places us in the dependent role). If we are dying, we may even feel as if we are forcing the living to face the necessity of their own deaths for which we suppose they will not be thankful.
Alone in Berlin – Book Review
by Hans Fallada (Translated by Michael Hofmann) Penguin Modern Classics.
The author of this absorbing novel has created a story about a decent character, Otto Quangel, who with his wife lives in Berlin during the second-world war. Working in a factory and living amongst a people whose private misgivings and criticisms of their political leaders are silenced by fear, Otto, also has a daily horror of the possibility of being reported to the authorities for having a wrong political attitude or for having committed some minor misdeed against the state. Such accusations could well result in arrest and torture or even a death camp. Yet he is prepared to communicate his criticism of the government’s oppression and unjust social policies as well as their military conquests abroad. For the regime in seizing absolute power, have destroyed any vestiges of democracy.
I wonder how we would react in similar circumstances? Thank goodness I do not have to face such a test. But many people in the world today who live under dictatorship have to find some way of accommodating themselves to corruption in their society while maintaining their self-respect.