Q&A: How Do You Live with Feelings of Guilt?
How Do You Live with Feelings of Guilt?
Question
A woman who had been my teacher, who believed in me that I would become a doctor when no one else believed, passed away today after a long illness. Because of the profession I chose, I didn’t visit her from the beginning of my job, which has been about seven months, because I didn’t get to the city where she lived and because of the daily grind.
How do you live with feelings of guilt? Am I selfish? A bad person? Because I couldn’t manage to find time to visit her after she stood by me in my hardest moments? Are there sources one can read and find comfort in?
Answer
Hello. It’s hard to give a definitive answer here. It would indeed have been proper to visit her, but still, what you did falls within the bounds of what an ordinary reasonable person does. We are all immersed in everyday life; even if one calls that selfishness, it is selfishness at the level of a reasonable person. Therefore, you should not be feeling pangs of conscience.
I think that if you channel these feelings of guilt toward being more careful in the future about how you treat others, and especially about visiting the sick and the elderly, that will certainly serve as atonement. I assume your teacher would take satisfaction from that, much more than from your walking around with guilt feelings that help no one. If you are a doctor, as I understand from your words, then you certainly have many opportunities to give care and personal attention to your patients, especially the elderly. That is the best way to make up for and atone for what you are feeling now.
That is my answer on the essential level. On the psychological question (how to live with one feeling or another), I don’t have the expertise, and I’m not the right address for that.