Guilt is an emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes—accurately or not—that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated universal moral standards and bear significant responsibility for that violation.
This is what Wikipedia had to say about it. But in my sense and in my life, this word means a lot more than what Wikipedia explained. I have been criticized a lot for using this word in places I shouldn’t have. So, I thought that I would try and help you out to not be criticized about being guilty. And know actually if you are ‘guilty’.
The meaning of guilt would vary from person to person and from reason to reason because of which the person is guilty. Sometimes, when you (later) realize the actual reason for your guilt you may feel stupid and maybe even sometimes deeply angry on yourself. I also want to mention, that here I am only talking about the emotion guilt and not about any other form of guilt (like the guilt of a criminal).
First, something that you think is wrong but is actually not. Either, you want to improve on it or you actually think that your actions or anything has affected someone. To rectify this, you should be introspecting. If this guilt is about something that you have done or made and you don’t think it actually is that good, then that is not very bad because this will help you improve, it doesn’t matter even if you are good enough.
Second, something that actually is wrong and you realize it very late, you feel very guilty. According to me this is the worst form of guilt. But when something like this happens, you should always remember that, “Nothing is that bad that it can’t be fixed even a little”. Try with whatever you got, try to fix it as much as you can. You should think about all the possible ways to deal with it. The best thing that can happen in this situation is if you realize it much before something more serious happens, in that case you should not wait for anything but try and fix it.
Third, something that people think are wrong and you think is right. In this, you realize really late about it. Also, for a long time you don’t even remember it as much, but when you remember it or are reminded about it, you feel really bad about it. Just like the last time you should try your level best to fix it but this time you should keep in mind that this was a really bad mess up and it was made quite a while ago. Still, you should try in every possible way to fix it. It will also depend on the severity of the incident. If it is about a person then you should keep in mind how close you are to that person and act accordingly.
At the end I just want to tell you that it is not possible that you are hundred per cent right at all times. So, you should be careful about whatever you say or do.
I hope I am able to explain the actual concept of guilt. All the best, stay safe, ’till we meet again.
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