“Guilt- Remorseful awareness of having done something wrong”

It’s often the most menial occurrences that make you stop to think about things in life. For example, whilst eating a chocolate éclair one evening I stumbled upon the concept of guilty pleasures, the idea that we all have a habit of eating or doing things we know are bad or at least not particularly good for us. After my studies in GCSE food technology I should know that the éclair perched in front of me so irresistibly and temptingly is full of saturated fats, unnecessary amounts of sugar and who knows what else. Yet why is it that I still have such a desire to eat it? And by the time of writing I have finished off the whole box of cream cakes completely. Shame on me!

What is interesting though is the fact that I show such a pathetically shallow sense of remorse. If thinking logically I would come to the conclusion that: something is unhealthy/bad, therefore don’t have/do (too much) something; however the temptation is often just too much to handle, for myself and many others I’m sure. The pleasure gained from eating the éclair simply outweighs the feeling of guilt it results in. In this way the guilt remains at a perfect yet awful level in which my guiltiness fails to deter me from the guilty pleasure at hand and I am resigned to this nagging guilt in the back of my mind, reconciled only by the éclair’s creamy, chocolaty, moreish goodness.

To expand on the idea of remorse, it is a rather interesting feature in humans. People with a moral conscience feel remorse after having committed a wrong, they feel regret for something bad they have done; this lingering regret is usually enough to deter them from doing it again. Also, in the eyes of the law, remorse is a measurable factor in which the gravity of sentences and punishments for crimes may be dealt, though this seems to be more applicable to wrongs of a greater severity, than the average guilty pleasure (unless murdering is your guilty pleasure, in which case you should be very guilty indeed). In such severe circumstances the remorse felt is of course greater due to the universal recognition of your crime; on the other hand who’s to know what you like to do or eat in your spare time. It is the personal nature of most guilty pleasures that allow us to so easily justify them time and time again; after all it will always be easier to defend such practices to yourself and not to the people and world around you.

To conclude:

“Guilty pleasure- the disregard of a remorseful awareness of having done something wrong but pleasurable”