Am I responsible?

“You are not responsible for the emotions of others. You are only responsible for your own actions and reactions.”
—Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Do you ever feel guilty?

Those of us who grew up in Asian-American households are familiar with the feelings of guilt. Even without direct pressure, there is an expectation of achievement. There are strong cultural values which stress respect and duty towards one’s parents. There is also a stigma around mental health. Personally, I am luckier than most because my parents held a very strong intention to raise me more like an American kid.

Despite that my parents were born in the motherland, I wasn’t forced to take piano or violin lessons. I never learned to speak Mandarin. Still, I was a straight-A student and went to MIT to study engineering. Even with more of a veneer of Americanism in me, I likely share more with my second generation Asian-American peers than I do with our white counterparts.

There are things I think I feel guilty about based on my upbringing, and there are things I feel guilty about based on past decisions, behaviors, and actions that I’ve been revisiting during my own retirement journey. My current exercise right now is to try to break down some of those things I feel guilty about and try to assess if I am “responsible” or if these feelings are misplaced.

Retiring early

This is a Substack about retirement, so I thought I’d start here. When I first decided to retire early, I felt guilty. There was somehow a learned expectation that I would work until I couldn’t do it any longer. Somehow, I had this guilt about being selfish, not contributing to society, and not optimizing the financial success of my family.

Then, I had to ask the question “Why did I feel that way?”

In the end of the day, I had to recognize several things:

• I am responsible for prioritizing my own health and happiness. Societal rules aren’t going to do this for me.

• I am responsible for deciding how I best contribute to society. Traditional corporate work structures aren’t necessarily the most productive way for me to do this going forward. (This is part of the reason I wanted to write this Substack for now.)

• I am responsible for figuring out the right formula for me within our family. Optimizing the success of my family isn’t necessarily 100% financial. In my particular case, I believe I can make a bigger impact by being more emotionally available to my family than by just doing another startup.

• I am not responsible for what other people outside my family think about my decision.

So, in this case, I feel that my guilty feelings were misplaced. That said, this issue of early retirement was an easier one to evaluate, as I spent more intentional time thinking through the issues.

Learning to Empathize

I think I lived most of my life learning sympathy, not empathy. Sympathy is about understanding another person’s feelings from a distance. In a professional setting with colleagues, sympathy works. When expressing sympathy for a colleague’s loss, it works to say “I’m sorry for your loss” to respect both their privacy and to acknowledge their grief. Sympathy also helps to motivate donations, volunteering, or advocacy for widespread issues without the need to connect with every individual's experiences.

However, to repair damage in retirement, I’ve mentioned in a previous post about how Marsha and I now do “state-of-the-union” meetings where we intentionally hone our skills of empathy. Unlike sympathy which is about understanding at a distance, empathy in our marriage for me is about putting myself in Marsha’s shoes and experiencing her feelings as if they were my own. If Marsha is feeling sad, empathy invokes her feeling of sadness in me so that I can offer support based on our shared emotional experience.

I’ve heard this described as sympathy is feeling “for” someone where empathy is feeling “with” someone.

One area that I am working on in learning to empathize is managing the emotional load. In our case, we have been working on how to resolve feelings accumulated over 30 years of being together. There has been a lot of revisiting of the past because many of the feelings still feel very “fresh.” We are both growing to understand the need to break patterns, and developing these skills of experiencing empathy has been overwhelming for me. (I spoke of my “therapy burnout” last week.)

So, I have felt guilty about not being able to manage this situation better. Somehow, I have had guilt about expressing a need to set some boundaries.

Then, I had to ask the question “Why did I feel that way?”

I am still having to recognize several things:

• I am responsible for my part in adhering to the frameworks that Marsha and I have been studying, particularly around “How couples build trust with attunement.” I must practice Awareness, Tolerance, Turning Toward, Understanding, Nondefensiveness, and Empathy. These seem like good frameworks, and I am bought in.

• I am responsible for my past actions, behaviors, and decisions. I must take ownership of these items and recognize where this feedback highlights potential blind spots or growth areas to make me a better person and partner.

• I am responsible for my own self-awareness. I need to be mindful of my own emotional limits. Marsha does her best to try to govern herself here, but this is not her responsibility. I have the power to state when I’ve had too much for a single conversation.

• I am responsible for focusing on what I can control now. I can recognize my past mistakes, forgive myself, and do my best to live in the present.

• It is not my responsibility to get Marsha to move on. That is her responsibility, and she is doing the work with her therapist to do so.

While all of this may seem very basic to those for whom feelings just come intuitively, these are skills I am having to learn. In this case, there are elements of guilt that are justified based on the past, but I should not feel guilty about expressing a positive need to set boundaries on both my emotional limits and inability to change the past as long as I can do better in the present.

Self-care

This is a lighter topic, but one that is significant. I’m a pretty natural introvert. Somehow, passive entertainment (particularly YouTube) is very soothing for me.

Things I like about YouTube:

• A way to decompress and recharge after social interactions.

• A way to absorb new ideas without the need to interact with people.

• A highly personalized experience. I can watch what fits my interests and moods.

• Less eye strain than reading books.

However, I feel guilty watching too much YouTube around Marsha.

Understanding why isn’t that hard. In Marsha’s family-of-origin, TV is an interesting trigger because it is loaded with history for her. When I would visit her parents’ home, the TV was literally on non-stop. Even the constant noise of the TV is a trigger. Also, in our home life, TV is an interesting trigger because, back when I was working, I used to like TV to decompress outside of work, meaning that I frequently missed her “bids for attention.”

So, I have to recognize the following:

• I am responsible for my past behaviors and missing earlier “bids for attention.” I remain responsible in the present for doing better to recognize and respond to these bids.

• I am responsible for understanding Marsha’s perspective on TV. I believe I have a pretty good understanding and should adjust my habits with this perspective in mind.

• I am responsible for my own self-care. While I definitely appreciate Marsha’s very deliberate efforts to make me happy, I also know it’s not her responsibility.

• I am responsible for expressing my feelings. I believe Marsha also understands well why I like YouTube, and she has been very understanding when I do want to watch it.

• I am responsible for setting limits on myself and to ensure that Marsha and I also spend time doing things we both enjoy.

• I am responsible for being considerate with the space, given that the big screen is also in the main area of the condo.

I have to take responsibility for my past actions, decisions, and behaviors, and for my current responsibility to recognize and respond to bids for attention. However, once doing that, I shouldn’t feel guilty about watching YouTube.

Works in Progress

Those examples are just a few of the things that I have inventoried about things I have felt guilty about. As mentioned, my current exercise is to become aware of other things I feel guilty about as I have these feelings. Let’s see how this goes!

I repeat the question. Do you have feelings of guilt?

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