How do you walk away with a clear conscience...without shame or guilt?

[mad mad mad]

i need someone to explain this mess in my head to me before i go crazy! here is this scenario of today:

i went to the libray i drove 5 miles out of my way to pick up a book that only this library had on the shelve.

i get to the check out desk only to be told that someone has it on hold but it had not been taken off the shelf yet.

i ask can i at least look at it? she says yes. it is a book called alternative cures and i wanted to look up somethings

for sugar cravings, etc.

 

i sepnd about half an hour reading through the book and taking notes. i take it up and asked if i could put a hold on it for myself.

different guy this time. he knows nothing of what i am talking about and hands me the book and says due back feb 29th.

 

i hesitate a split second before picking up the book and leaving.

on my way home i call my boyfriend who is working today and ask him if he wants some lunch from burgerking.

he says what he wants then says hold on let me ask my mom is she wants anything, and she does, okay fine.

 

then he says let me see if brian (another co-worker) wants anything too. i say to him, hold on! i am not shopping for everybody.

he says okay bye then.

 

okay finally here is the problem that drives me nuts! both incidences i have this tremendous guilt! i ponder if i should go back into the library and

return the book knowing damm well that someone has already put a hold on this book. i think the guy must of been new, he could of learned something by my

telling him what i knew about it being on hold.

 

my guilt is driving me nuts about this. however i calm myself by deciding that i would look up what i wanted to know then return it the next day to the library.

i decide to call my boyfriend back to ask if brian wants anything too from burgerking.

 

so why do i do all this? the guilt the shame, the conscious. all were driving me crazy, all were playing out these scenarios in my head about the right thing to do!

dammit! i just want some peace in my head when things like this happen, not a load of guilt dropped out of the sky and onto my head like a ton of bricks.

 

i could not feel better about all this until i knew if brian wanted anything or until i resolved to return the book a.s.a.p.

don't you think this is extreme?

 

honestly i go through all this emotional crap on a daily basis almost and it is just enough to drive me crazy!

i want to be able to walk away from something, anything witout the shame of having done something wrong, without the guilt that i stole something or was selfish,

and without my conscious bantering on and on about what i did and making me literally feel that i have to pay my dues for what i did.

 

i know it is a good thing to have a conscious to keep one honest but isn't this extreme? damm, ya know? i go crazy day after day with this kind of garbledeegook going

on and on in my head.

 

hell i cannot even do anything with out feeeling that i must first consult with my guilt complex, conscious and my shame based innerself from God only knows where!

okay i've ranted enough, any help out there from all you experts?

[fallenangel]

no expert here, actually none of us are.

 

guilt is our conscience's way of getting our attention. of course it wasn't right to take out that book knowing full well it was on hold for someone else, regardless of whether the other library guy said you could. and of course it wasn't nice to offer to get your BF some take-out but start getting peeved when he wanted you to get someone for his coworker also. what was he supposed to do? just sit there in front of his mom and coworker munching away while they had nothing? what was the big with adding another burger to your order?

 

also, it's been my experience that people who sit and stew and dwell about things like this, they generally have too much free time on their hands and need to get busy with constructive things to occupy their time.

[mad mad mad]

you totally missed my point! i did not mind getting him food and his mom but i had to wonder how many more people he was going to ask me to get food for too.

that is not even my point either, please re-read my whole post and i hope you come back with a different point of view.

 

the other guy works in another part of the building he does work where him and his mom were at, he had to get up and walk across the room and into another room

to ask this guy and i was not wanting to buy food for the whole darned place let alone try to remember what everybody wanted and keep the money straight as well.

 

my point in this post was the guilt, shame and conscious, i can't help but wonder if it is unreasonalbe or not!

[fallenangel]

why do you hope I'll re-read your post and come back to you with a different point of view? which point of view are you wanting to read? just tell me what you want to read and I'll see if I can whip it up for you. seriously though, i didn't miss your point at all. you're wondering if your guilt is reasonable. and I think it is, but really, what does it matter what I think? what matters is what you think and what you can live with.

 

of course you felt guilty for taking that book out of the library, that was reasonable in my opinion because you did so knowing full well the only reason you were able to check it out was because someone screwed up. you knew full well that because of the library guy's error or lack of experience, the person who the book was on hold for was going to end up going to check it out and it wouldn't be there, because you had it. and then of course, someone at the library would get into trouble. what is there to figure out here? your actions were dishonest.

 

as for the burger thing, it sounds like you're trying awfully hard to justify the big deal you made with not wanting to get your boyfriend's coworker a burger too. sounds like you jumped to conclusions and assumed that your boyfriend would end up asking you to get burgers for tons of people. you should have just chilled out and waited to see. how much figuring does one have to do to take out a scrap of paper and a pen and write down the orders for a few people? you do it like this: whopper with cheese, large fries. junior whopper small fries. etc. how hard is that? and how much figuring out of money do you have to do? you tell the burger king staff what you're ordering, they ring up the price, you hand them the money. it wasn't like your boyfriend was asking you to donate your organs to his coworkers. life and relationships are about give and take and being honest and being giving. you acted poorly in both situations and your sense of guilt likely is the result of your conscience (that's the right word, not "conscious") trying to bring that to your attention.

[Darkangelism]

You are supposed to feel guilty, but it is whether or not that causes you to act differently that matters. It is a balancing act of which is right, sometimes u must be selfish.I personally would have returned the book, but not called back and asked about burger king.

[carla]

In my opinion The library was at fault for two reasons, 1 that book should have been taken off of the shelf as soon as the call came in for it, Ok they were busy which leads me to fault #2 lack of communication.If the first person left for what ever reason, she should have told the new guy the book that you had was reserved for someone else and to put it aside when you were finished. Yes it's normal to feel guilty. You should be proud that you have a conscience and thank your parents for raising you properly with morals. In a society that is full of people that only care about ME ME ME ME ME it's nice to know that there are people that still think of others first. When it comes to the burger king thing I think the society ME ME ME thing kicked in, then your conscience kicked the selfishness out.

Good for you. Only 1 problem the few people in this world that put others feelings first tend to get stepped on and walked over by the ME ME ME ME people of the world. So BEWARE.

[mad mad mad]

maybe i should of just posted my question without the scenes that i explained because there are numerous situations that i have been in that have

caused me to feel extreme guilt, shame or an attack of conscience .

 

my main question was/is how much guilt and shame should a person carry to justify acts?

oh well this is a dead horse now because the original question has been tarnished by the scenes i depicted.

 

thanks again just the same to everybody.