Guilt keeps me stuck

[Dami]

Hi, I'm 22 years old, I'm italian. I have a very deep question. I study medicine and I simply love it. I love digging deeply in the subject and everything related to the scientific world is for me really fascinating. I want to spend my energies on it, but I'm struggling with my thoughts from a couple of years. My thoughts are mainly aroung guilt. I feel extremely guilty for the millions of animals that are killed maybe in awful ways. I always have in my mind scenes of these poor animals killed. The fact is that I love eating meat, I love doing barbecues with my friends and I love mozzarella and pizza margherita. Stop eating meat would also mean stop buying certain shoes, certain clothings, stop doing scientific research with animals, stop buying certain medical drugs. I think that stopping eating animals is a way towards ocd for me. In my life I have other feelings as: " I have to help the bums or else I feel distressed, I have to help my friends or else I feel distressed, I have to do this or else I feel distressed". I always have these thoughts of guilt that stop me from being happy. Two things helped me: meditation and Leo's video on morality, but I think I have to internalize it more. I would be glad if you could give me a hint on the path to follow. Thank you very much.

[aurum]

@Dami

I think wanting to help animals is great. But no one should ever do it out of feeling guilty because guilt is a lie. There is no reason to feel guilty about anything.

Guilt is also a weak motivator. No one moves a mountain because they feel guilty, they do the bare minimum they can get away with so that they don't have to feel guilt anymore. So you won't save many animals that way.

Also, consider that it's literally impossible to not inflict some amount of harm on other people or species no matter what you do. If you walked outside in nature today, you probably stepped on some bugs. If you take an Uber, you didn't take a taxi. Animals kill other animals to eat and survive all the time.

So at a certain point, you just have to accept that the world isn't perfect and isn't going to be perfect probably anytime soon. We can work to improve things, but at the end of the day society is where it's at and unless you're going to move into a cave, you have to live in it.

And maybe things don't need to be perfect. Maybe they're perfect in their own way, not in the way we wish they would be.

[Guest Quanty]

Never feel guilt about things, animals or people. Learn to forgive yourself and grow. 

Guilt is the number 1 responsible for deaths in the human race. 

[Dami]

Thank you guys! I'm working on it! Your advices are really useful. It's not written anywhere that the world has to be perfect.