Guilt, shame, and the hundred

Nobody's perfect. We all make mistakes. We all have regrets. We all wish we can have do-overs. We all wish we can forget the screw-ups.

Unless someone is completely incorrigible, humans carry at least a little shame and guilt with them. Learning from your mistakes makes you grow, but sometimes, forgetting the mistake is difficult. It can linger, re-emerging once in a while, reminding you that you should have acted differently, acted at all, or just shut up instead of saying something stupid.

Many years ago, I started counting up the self-embarrassments that were torturing me. I didn't tabulate these moments all at once, but after a few months, I had reached around 100 instances. I rounded to the even century and called it "the hundred."

As I accumulated this mental list, I realized, most of the shame-inducing incidents were before I was 25, and even then, before I was 18. I also committed to stop dwelling on the past miscues. If one popped back into my mind, I would silently declare that it's in the hundred -- and then move on without feeling bad.

The hundred works well. The repository helps keep me focused on the present and future while reinforcing that the past is the past, and it wasn't so bad and brought me to the place I am today.

I couldn't re-accumulate the list if I tried, which I suppose is progress, but lately, I'm reminded of something that is in the hundred, but I'm not able to let it go. I'm almost feeling extra bad about the past transgression, unable to immediately dispel the regret.

So I'm trying to figure out: Why is the hundred not as effective as it once was? Why are these little moments in the past especially bugging me in the present? Part of me wonders if it's the wisdom of middle age -- not failing, but better understanding what the dumb thing I did really meant at the time. In this way, the past is stinging even more and can't be brushed away.

That same middle-age wisdom should be impressed that I came up with the concept of the hundred in the first place and help me realize that there's nowhere to run, so let the guilt and shame of something so long ago simply breeze past. 

What ultimately matters now is not adding to the hundred. Years of learning has lowered the odds considerably.

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