“As products of an imperfect world, all of us are imperfect.  Every one of us has done some wrong.  There are things we regret – things we have done or things we should have done.  Acknowledging our wrongdoings with a genuine sense of remorse can serve to keep us on the right track in life and encourage us to rectify our mistakes when possible and take action to correct things in the future.  But if we allow our regret to degenerate into excessive guilt, holding on to the memory of our past transgressions with continued self-blame and self-hatred, this serves no purpose other than to be a relentless source of self-punishment and self-induced suffering.” ~ Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness