Guilt and fulfilment are somewhat opposite feelings that pull in the same direction. They are the carrot and stick of doing what seems subjectively right. Guilt when you fail, and indulge in something that seems wrong. Fulfilment when you succeed in doing what seems right.
And then there are two feelings that can easily hijack behaviour, because on the surface they seem so close to guilt and fulfilment. These are shame and pleasure.
Let’s define shame as social guilt. It’s feeling bad for doing what others judge to be wrong. And pleasure is a positive feeling similar to fulfilment, but not linked in the slightest to doing anything “right”.
A guilt response typically comes from not living up to ones own standards. Guilt is typically within one’s sphere of influence, since it relates to how one shows up in the world at any moment. It’s a controllable factor.
A shame response happens when it’s either likely or proven that one’s behaviour does not meet the standards or norms of others. This is outside one’s sphere of influence in the sense that other people can shift their norms arbitrarily and at high speed, leaving your behaviour to sit outside the norm. A shame response can easily arise from factors that are not controllable.
Fulfilment is a type of contentment that arises when living up to ones self-expectation. Doing things that matter, however that happens to be defined for any individual. It’s extremely close to any other sensation caused by a dopamine/oxy/endorphin release, and so it’s experientially extremely hard to distinguish between fulfilment and any other pleasant feeling. The distinction comes from the post-analysis. The distinction between different sorts of existential pleasure are a function of the new brain.
All emotions developed as evolutionary guides, to keep us alive and reproducing. There is a drive to motion in any emotion.
The world we live in is different from the savannah of forty thousand years ago, and careful consideration of which emotions to nurture and practice is appropriate.
I try to practice guilt and fulfilment in appropriate ratios. I am far more wary of shame and many other pleasures. Their value as guides in the modern world is dubious.
What emotions are worth practicing to you?