It eats away at the back of your head; it makes your hands sweat, and it makes your heart beat too fast for your body. Guilt.

Guilt travels in a variety of forms; it spans from allowing your eyes to wander during a test to cheating on your spouse of seven years. Guilt can range from mediocre to gruesomely horrible. Every day, you continuously have to make choices; your conscience repeatedly commands you to stop. It takes a toll on you. It takes a part away from you. Your heart shrinks like a drying sponge every time the quiet voice inside your head screams at you to stop, and you continue to ignore it.

Although you have already done the damage without actually doing anything, the mere thought of an impure action nags at your brain until you have become infatuated with the idea. Guilt changes people for the better and for the worse, for the good and for the bad. But, it’s your choice which one you allow it to do to you.

Will you crack under the pressure or fight through it?

Guilt changes your perspective on life. Due to it, you become careful, like a fox on a hunt, wondering who knows the secret you are so desperately trying to hide. You start to live in constant fright, fearing the destructive aftermath. The worst thing about guilt is the disappointment; when the secret you have fiercely been trying to hide comes out—it always finds a way— the looks and glances you receive slowly break you down.

Your own image of yourself is morphed into a villain.

There is always going to be that little reminder in the back of your head, no matter how hard you try to forget about it. Although it’s too late to fix it now, the past is in the past, and the only thing you have now in the unknown future. Living with that constant disappointments puts a strain on your mind which leads to you making yourself your worst enemy. You have to be stronger than yourself, stronger than the screaming voice inside your head telling you that you are worthless.

Life can’t be lived without guilt; it is something we have to learn to live with. Guilt does not travel well, but, what separates the strong from the weak is how they choose to learn and grow as individuals from their guilt.

The voice that drives is what keeps this world sane. Without it, the world would be full of appalling monsters. What separates you from these monsters is your choice: whether you listen to the voice inside your head or leave it to slowly die out on its own with the possibility that it comes roaring back more vigorously.

The question that remains is:

Do you listen to the voice?