I wasn’t always a helpful and compassionate person. In fact, there was a time when I fancied myself “the-girl-who-stops-at-nothing-for-everything-to-go-her-way”. I kept the guilt at bay using a little trick, which I got from Shirley Conran’s novel, Lace.

Take a standard, blank calling card-sized cardboard. Write “No Guilt” at the front, and “F*ck Guilt” at the back. At any time during an encounter that you feel the smallest amount of guilt, read the message at the front part of the card. If your indiscretion is too big to handle, and you feel more than a pang of remorse, turn the card over and read the message at the back part. Keep this in your wallet, always.

However, my experience taught me that a few years of doing this will take its toll. Unless you were taught at an early age to never have a conscience, your conscience will suffer from all the burden of hurting others and running away. As mine did.

My first chance at giving out helpful advice to someone I barely knew was when I met a girl who fell hopelessly in love with a guy she met in a bar. My approach was direct but wary, and before I knew it, I was rooting for her to make the right decisions, helping her get through the waiting-for-rejection phase, and yes, even giving my shoulder for her to cry on (when she finally did get rejected).

It felt good, this helping thing. It was food for my conscience, which was starving.

I know now that my “savior complex” stems from my need to ease the guilt that has been building through the years. With every heart I help heal, I heal myself.

(signature graphics by ricopola)

I once had this conversation with a guy wherein I asked out of the blue, “how’d you get damaged?”. He looked at me directly and said, “I’ll tell you my story if you’ll tell me yours.”

I was taken aback for a second and asked, “what makes you think I’m damaged?”. To which he answered, “only damaged people can recognize someone else who is. There’s a sort of kinship among the Hurt Ones .”

If you bear a grudge, nurture a guilt, desperately keep a secret stash of ill feelings… chances are, you are damaged too. And usually by your own doing.

So how do you know when you’re simply damaged or permanently broken? The difference between the two is spelled out in one word: Hope.

If you have it, there’s a future for you.