Lifting weights part two. Guilt or fear?

All this talk of guilt has got me thinking. In the comments after my last post I quoted Webster's dictionary. It defines guilt as being an internal emotion, but from your post and life experience, I don't think that's strictly true. I think we feel real guilt very rarely, after all we try on the whole to be good people. The feeling we label as guilt is something else.
Red Bird, we have a mutual acquaintance who upon your first meeting presented himself as a complete arse. Strutting around  the yard he put on a display reserved for the Peacock. Now it could be he is simply a complete arse, but doesn't it depend on who you ask. Machiavelli would call it 'mantenere lo stato', to defend your status and keep your position intact. Something he considered perfectly acceptable, in fact, preferable.So let's assume his strutting was in defence. This is a man who, as society would say, has failed. He worked hard, he went to school, he became accomplished in his field. He married, built a home and had two beautiful children. But he couldn't make his marriage last. Who knows who was to blame or what was to blame. The only thing that matters is that he failed at something. Suddenly all his accomplishments mean nothing, not the top corporate position he holds at work, the possessions he owns or even the two beautiful children. There is a sign he wears around his neck that says 'I am responsible for a broken home, I am responsible for my children's heartache.' Now having never left my partner I am perhaps not the best person to comment, but I have to assume there was a reason. Maybe he was unfaithful, maybe she was unfaithful. Maybe he was a slob or simply never home. Whatever it was, these two people were not happy together. So they left each other, they stopped punishing themselves and chose happiness in a life that is all too short. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Yet here he is strutting around the yard talking of his position and his housekeeper and his ability to finance both homes, a strange way to introduce yourself for sure but born of a need to defend his status and keep his position in tact, after all it is all he has now. So here it is, the disconnect. It was the right thing to do, they chose happiness for all their sakes including the children's I'm sure. But he knows he is judged, looked down upon, considered a failure, and it has become so all consuming that his first introduction to you is as a complete arse. He doesn't know you, he has no obligation to explain or justify  his decisions in life to you. You are a complete stranger, yet he feels this need to impress, to show you he is somebody of status. Had he moved in with family intact would he have been so boastful? Maybe, but I would argue that knowing he had it all would have been enough. Having gone through a divorce and all society attaches to that, BROKEN home, HURT feelings, FAILED marriage, here we have a man desperately trying to right the wrongs and get back into societies good books. Not make amends to his family, the ones who were directly affected, but to the world.  He feels a need to seek approval of everybody he comes in contact with because he knows he is being judged.
So why this judgement all the time?  I think as a species we need boundaries. We need to know the house rules, we need everyone to follow them and we need a status quo. Without this security we would have to take on the responsibility of our actions, we would have to think about what we are doing and why. It's so much easier when we can follow along and know that everybody else is doing it too. It is after all the easiest way to live. But our acquaintance has upset the staus quo, he dared to mess with the way things should be. The rest of the people move fast to put him in his place. If you're staying here you better follow our rules. So his pea cocking is to show that he can still tick the other boxes, he is successful at work, he has staff, he supports his family. He is ever fearful of being kicked out of the safe room.
But what of the people who want to leave. What of the ones who say 'I'm leaving this group of happily marrieds and heading over to that room over there. But hey I can still visit, right?' Well sadly the people in the safe room aren't that flexible, they struggle with this concept as it  messes with the stability of their environment. What if, when you visit, you bring others with you, what if more from our group want to try living in that other room. It's just to risky and so they try and guilt you into staying because they are fearful. So there you are, on one side the people you know telling you not to leave, the door on the other side behind which lies the unknown and a no-mans land in the middle that offers no security at all.
The point I'm trying to make Red Bird is that on the whole we judge others because it threatens our own security and comfort. Sadly we fall for it when being judged and don't follow our hearts desires. When we started telling people about our journey, that we were selling our house, our belongings, giving it all up to travel without any real plan of where we were going, surprisingly to us, we got nothing but positive reactions. 'Wow, that's great.' 'I've always wanted to do that' 'I would love to just up and go too'. Yet when we said well why don't you then, everybody came up with reasons why they couldn't and not one of them was strong enough to hold water. Why don't they just go? Because the fear of doing something different is strong, but the fear of rejection is too much.
So I think when we feel guilty about unusual decisions in life what we are really feeling is the fear of others projected upon us. What if you leave this safe room and get to that room over there and the door is locked? What if the others won't let you back into this room, will I ever see you again?. Are you really strong enough to float around in that no-mans land by yourself? What if you fail and  every one's watching? I'm scared for you. How will this affect MY life? Well here's the best part, and you know I always think there's a best part, when you do take that step they realise that the no-mans land is full of people who funnily enough are so much more like you, and perhaps for the time being, you don't need a room at all. You were brave enough to take that step and you seem happy. So the word 'forgive' is used. I forgive you for my feelings of insecurity. I forgive you for my own anxieties or close mindedness. I forgive you even though this was all about me, I forgive you even though I was  being selfish. I'm going to forgive you now because it makes me feel better about myself. It offers the people around you some sort of control. They have expressed their discomfort of your rule breaking, they have had time to digest and organize how it's going to effect their lives and they have come to the conclusion that both you and them have survived this upset.
So when you feel guilt, stop and think for a minute, is this guilt or is this fear, and if it's fear is it mine or is it theirs? If it's theirs give them some comfort that your leaving will not disrupt the integrity of their safe room. Play them a little status quo!