“We cannot alter objective facts. But subjective interpretations can be altered as much as one likes. And we are inhabitants of a subjective world.”
― Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
My brilliant and wildly self-aware friend walks around the world with her parents’ slice-o-life mantra echoing in her ear, “You ain’t got no problems.” When she first relayed this confronting maxim to me, I found it rather perturbing and immediately reacted: Everyone has problems! And the more we deny the validity of someone’s feelings and troubles, the bigger and more unmanageable those problems become, right?
While this may be true, I must also acknowledge the sneakier feeling that welled up inside me as my ears were assaulted by this sentiment: guilt.
Ugh. Guilt. A burden to even say. Guilt is possibly the most useless and least attractive emotion we carry, and one which I am all too familiar with. Sure, you could make the case for greed, gluttony, and all their five other friends, but I think guilt should be added as the “and sometimes Y” step-sibling to the deadly sins. While guilt can often be a galvanizing emotion leading to positive action, it’s a thinly veiled excuse for altruism, making the root of the plant weak and unsustainable.
It makes perfect sense that so many of us have become paralyzed by guilt and shame. We live in a hyper-globalized society where call-out culture runs amuck and negative moral suasion is the name of the game. While this negative call-out strategy has led to some self-awareness and change on individual and collective levels, the backfiring of defensiveness, anger, depression, anxiety, and shame is palpable and counterproductive and something we need to recognize.
Guilt poisons the soil and undermines the changes we seek. By encouraging change through negative thought and action, we make ourselves vulnerable to new and dangerous adversarial relationships.
No one likes being called out. While there is usually an opportunity for reflection in these moments, when the moment becomes a dismissive and degrading experience for an individual or a group, the instinctual response will inevitably be self-protective, fearful, and far from open and understanding.
I am no stranger to the guilt reaction. There are so many times I’ve thought about how privileged I am, and I want to shrink into a little tiny cottage of gnomes where everyone lives off the natural mushrooms and flowers and never has to apologize for anything because they are just magical creatures with a beautiful symbiotic relationship with the land in which we inhabit. Aka, I want to wash the guilt away. Sounds nice, but in reality guilt has done nothing but distract me from true altruism, connection, and wisdom.
Guilt is dangerous. When we feel guilty and deflect by making others guilty, we are robbing ourselves of opportunities for gratitude. This is not just a flowery feeling reserved for morning journal entries and modern hippies. It is perhaps the most powerful ingredient needed for positive and lasting change.
Why are guilt and shame our first responses to “checking our privilege?” Because we all want to relate to one another and feel connected to our peers. That is human nature. But sometimes, we must be honest with ourselves and see when our existence is actually quite different from others. It is painful, but it is essential; whether that means examining the privilege of being an American, white, wealthy, well-educated, male, with a supportive family, with desirable features, physically able, and anything else that makes life smoother for one person over another.
Once we can look more objectively at these truths, removing our guilt and shame can allow us to change from within instead of simply acting shallowly out of fear and self-preservation. This shift from guilt to gratitude does not negate one’s own experience of pain, hardships, loss, health problems, and a long list of distressing experiences. It’s simply a practice of recognizing where we don’t have problems and where others do.
This week, my Israeli cousins are in town. It is an actual miracle that they all made it here after living in a war-torn country for six months. They are so happy for the break, but the heaviness rests just behind their eyes.
They have all experienced the war differently, but no matter their experience, I know it is eons away from my own. Yes, I have been internally tortured and scared for my family and the future of this country, and I am painfully learning how vulnerable we actually are as Jewish Americans. But I have not spent the night in anticipation as hundreds of drones are launched in my direction, praying the technology in place to shoot them down is successful. I do not spend every day in agony that my own friends and family are dying as hostages in a war where my ideals do not align with those of my government. I do not walk around my neighborhood wondering if there are any remaining terrorists hiding in the dark corners of my home.
It doesn’t matter what you think you know about this war. It matters that you recognize that you do not know what this life of war and particular pain feels like. And that is a privilege. Instead of simply feeling guilty about this, be grateful. Recognize that in many ways, you ain’t got no problems.
Amazing. Keep sharing. Write a book.
Great read