I don’t know if it’s just me, but I walk around with an immense amount of guilt. The feeling is persistent, it’s always there.
I live my strange life - making decisions that aren’t the most “normal” - all the while with this heavy, nagging guilt inside my head.

If I get a degree in something like the Arts, guilty of picking the wrong thing to study because it’s not profitable.
If I go to school and then not go into the field I studied, guilty for spending all that time and money and not pursuing what all that energy was spent learning. 
If I don’t have a “regular” job, guilty of not being a productive part of society.
If I don’t make a lot of money, guilty of being “unsuccessful”.
If my family is religious and I’m not religious, guilty for being a sinner.
If I’m almost 30 and not married, guilty of being either lonely or selfish.
If I decide not to have a family, and rather spend time to grow myself into a person I like, guilty for letting myself age and wasting my eggs.
And on
And on

Uff, it’s exhausting. It’s difficult getting away from this guilt; it’s conditioned inside my brain. Conditioned since very young to follow rules.
Rules set by society, by religion, by family and if those rules are not followed, guilty. Guilty of being a terrible person. 

But, what if I’m not a terrible person? What if I don’t lie, don’t have bad intentions and don’t hurt or kill anyone. Am I still terrible?
Why should I feel guilty if my actions/thoughts are not harmful to anyone?
Why should I feel guilty for simply trying to do things that make me happy?
(It’s funny, even as I think/write this, I feel guilty for thinking in this way)

But, honestly, how many people do you know that follow all the rules and are still terrible, unhappy people?
So, if no one can guarantee that following the rules will make me a good, happy person, what the hell are we doing?
What is the use of these banal rules that we are supposed to follow?
Do they actually serve a purpose beyond trying to ensure we all conform to a particular way of living and thus are easy to control? 

I would like to first find out what I am capable of, then take the time to decide who I am/can be/want to be. If I end up a sad, lonely, miserable, terrible person, at least it will be on my own fault and I will have no one else to blame but myself.

So, recently, I’ve started to pretend that no one taught me the rules.The guilt is much heavier than it used to be when I cared about/followed the rules. But, I’ve started to treat it like a giant elephant in a tiny room. Maybe if I can somehow leave the room, close the door, and ignore that the room exists, the elephant will suffocate and die (and thus the guilt will die). It’s a sad image, I like elephants, but that’s what it feels like trying to achieve emancipation from this mental burden.

This is the only time (that I can recall) that I would like an elephant to die.