Aditya Kothadiya’s Blog

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Whatever you do, you always end up in guilt!

August 23rd, 2007

Yesterday my friend, Ravish discussed very interesting thought with me – ”Whatever you do, you always end up in guilt!"

So true. Throughout my all daily activities, I feel guilty in almost all acts.

  • If I wake up late, I feel guilty because I didn’t sleep early.
  • If I wake up early, I feel guilty because I didn’t have enough sleep to complete my work and spoiled my life-work balance.
  • If I eat pizza and drink soda, I feel guilty because I didn’t eat healthy food.
  • If I eat salad as healthy food, I feel guilty because I didn’t eat what I wanted to eat — the tasty and spicy food.
  • In the office, I feel guilty because sometimes I work on my part time personal activities.
  • In the evening, I feel guilty because I didn’t work diligently on office tasks in the office.
  • In the night, I feel guilty because I didn’t spend quality time with my wife.
  • At the end of the day, I feel guilty because I didn’t complete all my to-do tasks.

I can go on and on, but you got the point. I don’t want to do any analysis or prepare any "how-to" list to avoid being in guilt. I just want to bring the point that, ending up always in guilt is a fact. Let’s live with it. We can’t avoid it. We can try to minimize it by staying more focused and more disciplined. But let’s not worry too much about removing it completely. Instead, let’s use our thinking bandwidth wisely to move on forward.

Have a very focused week ahead!

Posted in Uncategorized

  • Rajesh

    I refuse to live with guilt; rather I want to train my brain / my thoughts in a way so that it never ever ends up in guilt. The goal here is not to live with guilt. Guilt comes because it’s human nature to see ‘greener grass on the other side of the fence’. Once you train yourself to see the ‘greenest grass on YOUR side always’, the guilt will go away forever. This does not happen so quickly. It requires months and years of practice. To fill guilt free I always think where I was before years and where I am right now, rather then where Bill Gates was and where he is. I always think I have perfect fitness / perfect wealth / perfect family / perfect friends suitable to my need and requirement at this moment of life and I enjoy it fullest.

    So here is how I live…

    • I make decision to go to bed late myself and can see result as waking up late next day morning. I believe from bottom of my heart that it was right thing to do because of something important than waking up early next day. No guilt when I wake up late.
    • I wake up early with the thought that ‘early bird catches the worm’ and rush to get ready to catch ‘THE WORM’ without guilt.
    • When I eat pizza or drink soda, I think I am consciously working on my digestive system to train it to absorb some of the ‘bad’ stuff so that in emergency it can still survive on that ‘bad’ stuff.
    • When I eat salad, I think it is good for my system but I make up my mind to eat tasty and spicy food at some defined schedule in a way it doesn’t affect adversely to my system.
    • I believe office pays me for 40hr/week. I make sure I work 40hr/week for the office, weather it is during day / evening / weekend, doesn’t matter. I can not accept myself to cheat office by working less then 40hr but I know something is important to be done during day time and I do it in controlled manner so it doesn’t harm office.
    • I always work diligently in the office so never end up in guilt.
    • I make sure I spend 100% quality time with my wife. If I have something to take care and it take away some time from my family, I promise myself to give back the time to family to avoid guilt and make family understood that the missing time is not going to go away.
    • When my to-do is not complete, I find out genuine reason and acknowledge that reason for not completing to-do tasks. I put the info in planning feedback and improve next time.

    In nutshell, take responsibility of what I do and make conscious decision before doing things to avoid guilt later. Continuously learn what are RIGHT things I should be doing. Even do wrong things by knowing I am doing wrong thing and I will never end up in guilt.

  • Rajesh

    I refuse to live with guilt; rather I want to train my brain / my thoughts in a way so that it never ever ends up in guilt. The goal here is not to live with guilt. Guilt comes because it’s human nature to see ‘greener grass on the other side of the fence’. Once you train yourself to see the ‘greenest grass on YOUR side always’, the guilt will go away forever. This does not happen so quickly. It requires months and years of practice. To fill guilt free I always think where I was before years and where I am right now, rather then where Bill Gates was and where he is. I always think I have perfect fitness / perfect wealth / perfect family / perfect friends suitable to my need and requirement at this moment of life and I enjoy it fullest.

    So here is how I live…

    • I make decision to go to bed late myself and can see result as waking up late next day morning. I believe from bottom of my heart that it was right thing to do because of something important than waking up early next day. No guilt when I wake up late.
    • I wake up early with the thought that ‘early bird catches the worm’ and rush to get ready to catch ‘THE WORM’ without guilt.
    • When I eat pizza or drink soda, I think I am consciously working on my digestive system to train it to absorb some of the ‘bad’ stuff so that in emergency it can still survive on that ‘bad’ stuff.
    • When I eat salad, I think it is good for my system but I make up my mind to eat tasty and spicy food at some defined schedule in a way it doesn’t affect adversely to my system.
    • I believe office pays me for 40hr/week. I make sure I work 40hr/week for the office, weather it is during day / evening / weekend, doesn’t matter. I can not accept myself to cheat office by working less then 40hr but I know something is important to be done during day time and I do it in controlled manner so it doesn’t harm office.
    • I always work diligently in the office so never end up in guilt.
    • I make sure I spend 100% quality time with my wife. If I have something to take care and it take away some time from my family, I promise myself to give back the time to family to avoid guilt and make family understood that the missing time is not going to go away.
    • When my to-do is not complete, I find out genuine reason and acknowledge that reason for not completing to-do tasks. I put the info in planning feedback and improve next time.

    In nutshell, take responsibility of what I do and make conscious decision before doing things to avoid guilt later. Continuously learn what are RIGHT things I should be doing. Even do wrong things by knowing I am doing wrong thing and I will never end up in guilt.