After reading the posts this week, I was beginning to feel like a sociopath because I don’t consider myself to be a person deeply effected by guilt. But then, I realized I was starting to feel guilty that I don’t carry around boatloads of guilt. So, happy discovery: I am not a sociopath. Unhappy discovery: I guess I do, in fact, have issues with guilt.
In my experience, comparing myself to others leads me to guilty feelings which lead me to beat myself into trying to be perfect.
Unfortunately, guilt motivates me.
A year ago, I saw a counselor. The subject got around to how overwhelmed I felt. He asked me if I ever take breaks throughout the day. I told him how I love the show Ellen, but can’t bring myself to watch it unless I have a pile of laundry to fold, clothes to iron, or some other chore that can be done in front of the TV. He told me that was ridiculous and I should just sit down and watch Ellen if I want to. I tried, but I felt so rottenly guilty sitting down to the TV in the middle of the day while my husband was hard at work that I shut the TV off after just a few minutes.
Then, I went and found a bunch of piano students to fill in that time slot of the day. I don’t think I was consciously trying to replace Ellen with work, but I think I must have felt that if I had time to watch TV, I had time to work.
I didn’t stop accepting piano students. When a writing job came up, I applied for it. I have now filled nearly every minute of my day with WORK, WORK, WORK and more WORK; partly because I was eager for income and opportunity, but partly because I felt guilty for not working hard enough.
I am now seeing the error of my ways as I deal with the guilt of not spending enough time with my family.
My error came when I felt I needed to compare my workweek to my husband’s 50 hour workweek. I like equality, but this was like comparing apples to oranges. How can I ever find equality when I am (trying to be) a stay-at-home mom and he is a working dad? We’re filling two completely different roles!
When we compare ourselves to others, we always come up short, because the comparisons are unfair. We tend to compareour absolute worst traits to somebody else’s absolute best traits. So your neighbor is a better cook than you. But she is wishing she could sing a song as beautifully as you can, or be as brilliant as you, or be as friendly as you.
I think once we stop comparing, we have a much better sense of who we are. We can understand our limitations and abilities and forgive ourselves for our mistakes much more readily.
The question is: how do you stop comparing? Once I figure that out, I’ll let you know!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
What an interesting week to find how all of us do have guilt and how we all struggle with it. Maybe we should take a lesson from women in the 60’s who burned their bras to liberate themselves. We could form a group to burn our guilt so that we too can be liberated.
There must be a purpose for guilt just like there is a purpose for spiders and rats, but I can’t for the life of me see was it is. Guilt is a waste of time if we don’t learn from it, so when you feel guilty try to see what you can do to change the source and if you can’t then don’t worry any more about it. As far as I can see none of these women have much to feel guilty about.
Oh yes comparing yourself to your husband just does not work. I love listening to those beautiful talks about how we are equal but different. You work really hard at being an amazing Mom, which should equal 100 hours a week. There now you can drop something
I also feel really guilty watching any amount of TV during the day, so it rarely happens. (unless of course I have a pile of laundry to fold!) And yes, comparing my day to Troy’s day never got me anywhere. In fact it only hurt our relationship. I would say it was a stressful day with 4 kids and everything to do, and he would say it was a stressful day with 2800 kids at the high school. Was there ever a winner in that arguement? Of course not. You said it perfectly, it’s like comparing apples to oranges!
We seriously need to stop comparing ourselves to others, we really are only hurting ourselves.