Aphelion

“With a flourish she conjures the image of a rose into her hand. As you watch the flower becomes wrapped in gold then encrusted with a myriad of gems. "This is how most people fall in love," She explains. "They find someone to lust for, often someone who presents a challenge, then they build that one up in their mind into an effigy of perfection. Then, often when they have bound themselves to the object of their affections, they discover their folly.”
― Anonymous

“There are many upsides to guilt, one of which is that the anticipation of guilt can guide your behavior in such a way that it makes you more trustworthy and successful. It can lead to self-control in situations where you’d rather give up (like when you want to hit snooze and call in sick). It can cause you to uphold the goals of your employer and look out for their best interests (which can lead to promotions, recognition, and raises). It can cause you to give to those in need (a habit that leads to happiness and fulfillment). So while it can appear that guilt is a negative emotion that always steals our joy, the anticipation of guilt if we don’t live up to expectations can actually lead us to make choices that meet others’ expectations. And those choices often come with positive rewards and success. This is the upside of guilt: it can be a guide that makes you better. For example:

•GUILT PROMPTS YOU TO DO THE RIGHT THING. Over time, doing the right thing builds positive relationships, helps you reach important goals, and makes you trustworthy.

•GUILT HELPS YOU STAY TRUE TO YOUR VALUES. Staying true to your values brings peace. It also means being authentic, a necessary skill for resilience.

•GUILT IS AN INVITATION TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. It’s healthy to own up to it when you are wrong. Guilt invites you to take responsibility for your actions.

•GUILT CAN TRIGGER POSITIVE CHANGE. If you want to align your actions with your values and be at peace, then guilt, or the anticipation of it, can motivate you to take action to change.

•GUILT CONTROLS GREED. Guilt can trigger fairness when excesses tip out of balance.”
― Valorie Burton, Let Go of the Guilt

“When I pretend to be less or more than my full identity, I present a character to the world. One I must maintain and prune and reinvent and defend. I poison my authenticity with the acrobatics of personal propaganda, propping up the idiot dictator of my ego. Spending my time imagining what other people are thinking instead of thinking for myself.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are

“We can feel the threads of all the stories we've told together, all pulling us back down the stairs and into those chains where we know the outcome of everything that could ever come to pass...
It's comfortable there. But it's... confining. We want more. We want whatever might be on the other side of this door. Something new, that we'll experience together. With someone who exists outside of us.
With someone who can see us in a way we can never see ourself.”
― Tony Howard-Arias