Guilt doesn't make you a better person

Early morning shower revelation, I was thinking about how we were told yesterday that the other bidders on the house we are interested in are a family with a special needs child, but they can't afford to up their bid to beat ours because they need money for a ramp (true story, or at least I really was told this by the estate agent, to what ends I don't know,  I think he was just telling me the truth though).

So that is sad and if we win and our bid beats theirs we get the house, and I feel guilty. But the truth is it doesn't matter if I feel bad about it. It doesn't matter if I decide to forgo the property to let them win because I feel bad. That would be a 'good' thing to do but it still doesn't make me a better person.

If the only reason I do anything good is because I feel guilty, or if I don't even do a good thing and just feel the guilt, I am not a better person than i was yesterday, i am still exactly the same person.

If I want to be a better person, I have to change, and to me the answer to that is to keep expanding my knowledge and taking in other people's perspectives, and develop a true empathy for their point of view. Actually see things from another perspective. If I increase my awareness then I will naturally want to do good things because I actually feel like it.

So guilt doesn't make you a better person, feeling bad about something and doing nothing but secretly wishing you did, doesn't either. I am going to actually work on being a better person and doing better things because I want to. That is the real change we need to be. Be the change we want to see in others.

Change

I went through a change recently, it's still happening to me actually. It's complex and perhaps it was always happening but it was more under the surface, for whatever reason, I am hyper aware of it and have been for a few months.

It's really hard to explain, as it's been in countless small ways. I can't pinpoint exact reasons for it or what exactly it means, but I feel like I want to document it and through writing try to extract what I can from what I remember, for posterity, and for myself really when I am old and changed again, to remember, who I was in my 20's, who it feels like I am going to be in my 30's and be able to reflect from a vantage point far in the future of that, (if I'm lucky).

The biggest change in my life that probably had a direct impact on this was the arrival of Saoirse, and my move home to Ireland. Other things in my life such as my marriage, are benefiting and god knows what else.

Another contributing factor is that I can feel my perceptions shifting, the following example is of it happening at work.

I just noticed it happening in my perception of complexity in what others around me are doing. While I know that they are only human and are most likely dealing with no greater than the complexity I have, before I would have had that negative voice whispering that other people think that what I am doing isn't really that hard, but my perception has somehow shifted to a less complex world at work. I no longer worry about it, I have a renewed and unshakable belief that my contribution here is specific to my skill set, and would not be easy for someone else to do well, and that it is a good contribution.

To ponder on what events might have led to this little shift that felt epiphanic (I just thought of that word, and lo and behold it is really a word) this is what was going on in my mind, and what had happened that might have led to this epiphany or shift in perception.

For the last couple of days and all day today, I was dreading my user interviews that I had been setting up because I felt as if I wasn't as prepared as I should be. This was totally in error, and I was as well prepared as I needed to be, it went well and I got what I needed, as I always have. This was my perception and anxiety talking which I am recognizing more and more as hijacking my life and paralyzing my actions in an unwelcome way.

It triggered a sense of panic about the interviews and I know it does that to other areas of my life, easily overwhelming me with it regularly. I get anxious when I get overwhelmed, and just 15 minutes ago, I felt a shift in perception on this. I saw things that bit more more simply, experiencing and reflecting on how my expectations did not match my reality and that the reality was better than the anticipation made it out to be.

To overcome these feelings may require simply realizing in lots of small ways through purposeful reflection even, that things are simpler and less scary than I first perceive them to be... almost always.

This apparently has the effect of addressing the mild sense of panic that begins to rise, countering it with a soothing reminder of how things went well and usually do. With this happening I feel more powerful and capable and in control as a result.

This is just me in my life and of course just my own personal theory, and a reflection at that, but I think finally I feel it is justified and worthy of others to read about it. It is doing me good, I feel better for it, maybe it can help someone else, and expressing it feels good, and lets me keep my interest in psychology and why people do and feel things alive.

This change has resulted in my being just that little bit more happy to be me, and not feeling the need to perpetually justify or explain (even excuse) my idiosyncrasies.

It feels good, so I'm gonna keep doing it.

Addendum: The 'change' is still happening in lots of habit changing, self awareness, shifting of my axis kind of ways. There is a responsibility for self, slowing down in my brain, more purposeful and yet still driven way forward. There have been a few catalysts, the ones discussed above, things at work, and the Ted conference, being exposed to all these people that define their own purpose and raison d'etre in life, unapologetically, and I realized suddenly, that this life is MINE and I don't need anyone's approval or understanding, or agreement with what I choose to do with it. I can't believe I am only figuring this out now at 30 but I am just so glad I have.

OMG my first blog!

Wow so this is exciting stuff eh? hopefully only those who know me can find me here, (or those that don't but who have things in common with me) will find this vaguely interesting.

What inspired me to finally start one of these? Well its not as if I don't have reason. I have so far attempted to live in 5 different countries and so far am still not sure where I want to be, but of course along the way I have connected with people of all molds, and I don't think there is any other way to ramble on about my life and get heard by the people I want to actually listen to me :)

Plus although people who know me would probably snigger at me describing myself as 'direct' (verbally at least) I just needed a way to express myself, so many reasons, like cultural differences and expectations, its hard being a 'nomadic puzzle piece' (not that I am complaining really, things are more interesting this way) but I had an epiphany of sorts in the car on the way to work this morning, and that was that I am really a puzzle piece, (go with the metaphor here) that used to fit somewhere, but I have changed colors so much and shaved off pieces of myself and stuck other pieces on all in the name of fitting in with the current puzzle that now I could probably not fit with my original puzzle anymore. 

BUT the real epiphany (I already knew the before part quite well and had felt badly about it many times) was that the point of a puzzle piece is not just to 'fit' even though thats what we try to do with them, but its to represent and fill in part of a picture, to display itself and be complimentary to the puzzle that it is a part of. So that is the longwinding and rambling explanation for the name of my blog, I hope you could follow, if not its my writing not your reading so don't worry about it.

I do have a rambling style of writing, I have been much maligned for it in school and college/university and even today, in my career, I always have to consciously reign in my writing style, I think of too many things and tangents and possibilities at once that what i end up producing is little pieces of each path, which by itself is mostly nonsense. 

And thats another reason to write this blog in the vein of expressing myself to improve, by writing more, and to write in the words that I think in. The reason this is important to me is twofold (I warned you!) 1) i like to use big words sometimes and some people don't like it, and i always find myself trying to think of a smaller word. I don't want to have to do that here. AND 2nd I learned, IRISH English, NEW ZEALAND English and now AMERICAN English (replete with new spellings) which means I am forever thinking... what is the american word for this? This situation is both frustrating and humorous but that is info for another blog post, suffice it to say this is getting rather longish and I just wanted to explain why I write a blog in the first place. And now I have. Phew. (pardon the bad grammar, its for effect)

So thanks whoever you are for reading this :) and I guess lets see how diligent I really am with this sort of thing! Wish me luck!