Tell me why

 

I often find myself feeling twinges of guilt when I should just be enjoying the moment. When I realize I am doing this I have tried to analyze it. Why should I feel guilty about feeling good?

Is it that old superstition about tempting fate or the gods by making them think we are trying to compete with them. In other words, do I have a right to feel heavenly?

Is it that old wive's tale that good times are just waiting for the other shoe to drop, just a precursor to something that could be unimaginably awful?

Is it because, like my devout Catholic friend believes, my suffering is keeping someone else's suffering to a minimum. I am suffering so they won't have to suffer as much and therefore when I am happy I am adding to their pain? Should we all strive to be saints buried alive, or living in some kind of torment?

Or is it just our Puritan roots coming back to haunt us. Miserableness is next to godliness.

I suspect it is all of those added onto the burdens passed down from ancestors who lived during the depression and think life is supposed to have a cloud hanging over it. The old, if I had to get up at the crack of dawn and work my fingers to the bone it made me a better person and by golly I'll make you the same way!

The idea that I am not entitled to feel pretty, or happy, content, or blessed without being "bad" in some way is one I am trying to get over. My head has always known it was wrong. Now I just need to erase these ideas from my subconscious.