Dean Koontz's character, Odd Thomas, has been a stick that causes brain stirring for me.  Because I have been living with a broken relationship for a year an a half I have had to review my actions, my behavior, and my attitudes with relentless honesty.
 I cannot find anything that makes me an exceptionally bad person.

“. . . the human heart is disheartened by the most unreasonable self-judgment, because even when we take on giants, we too often confuse failure with fault, which I know too well.  The only way back from such a bleak despondency is to shape humiliation into humility, to strive always to triumph over the darkness while never forgetting that the horror and the beauty are more in the striving than in the winning. When triumph at last comes, our efforts alone could not have won the day without that grace which surpasses all understanding and which will, if we allow it, imbue our lives with meaning.”
  Dean Koontz, “Odd Interlude”, p. 188 (paper)

I grew up in what I call the "old Tacoma bigot" mentality.  A lot of certainty about what was right, what was wrong, and who was wrong (me) was drummed into me by not only my family but by the social context in which I lived.  I'm probably not totally past it even now.  "unreasonable self-judgment" comes easy to me.

Having said that, I have lived for fifty years getting past it, and learning to judge myself lightly and others even more lightly.  More is the result of our human condition that we think, and we cannot be "blamed" for being born human.

What do you think about self reproach?  Leave a comment and let us know.