Gutting the guilt

I feel a lot of repressed guilt. I don't know when the habit of feeling this way began, but whenever I have lots of free time on my hands I feel guilty for being quote unquote unproductive.

For example, today is Memorial Day here in the US. I did not go to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram to copy and paste a meme like everybody else acknowledging our fallen soldiers or go out to grave sites to plant flowers; I did not do any studying, reading, or exercising or getting outside to appreciate the sun and warmth we've been much deprived of all winter. Here's what I did do: I lay in my bed most of today, scrolled social media a little, took a quiz which supposedly revealed my hidden self, read an article written by Deepak Chopra, and watched a few YouTube videos; one containing interesting facts about sperm, and a few others about astrology. In other words, I did exactly what I wanted to do. If I didn't want to do it, I would have done something else. Yet I felt guilty for not doing something else. It's as if I have a father figure in my head that scolds me and tells me how undisciplined and unproductive I am, and reminds me that the clock of life is ticking.

Where does this constant need to produce in order to feel approval come from? Could it be the conditioning of everyday life experienced in the outside world boiling over into my personal life? My personal time should be for ME to just be: to not have to think, to not have to produce, to not have to vie for the approval or acceptance from any outside force.

I think I know what the truth is. I am constantly reminded of my mortality and there is a fear of dying without having left my mark on the world somehow. The lyrics of Beyonce's Diane Warren penned theme "I Was Here" sums it up. When I probe into it further, I think this fear is really a reflection of my feeling unacknowledged and a false belief that I'm only worthy of praise and approval if I produce something of value for others. I think that if I can get to the root of this need to feel acknowledged and purge myself of it, then I won't feel guilty for being "unproductive."

I'm writing this not for anybody else but myself, to allow myself the freedom to just be. I feel like I still have some ways to go into fully accepting myself for who I truly am, but each day brings a revelation to help me get there.