The thing about guilt is that it can become deceptively addictive. It has a way of making you believe that guilt, in and of itself, is an act of change when in fact, it is not. Oftentimes guilt shows up in our lives as an emotional response to an intellectual acknowledgment of our own lack of integrity in a certain area in our lives. Guilt is usually just a signal that we should do better. It's a precursor to change, but it is not the change itself. If you're not careful you can find yourself settling in the cycle of guilt and feeling tied to it by the entitlement that says, "I should be congratulated for feeling guilty because bad people don't feel guilt, but I do."
-- Andrea Krystal, Can Black People Grow Hair?, p. 36-37
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