Now think back to the regrettable decision you made. Is it fair to hold that decision against yourself which such moral force?
The easiest interpretation (explanation in words) of some thoughts is misleading. For example, affirming an aspect of identity, like “I’m a polite person,” has the effect of shaping future behavior, so it’s often more of a decision or precommitment than a description, and it’s more accurate to call that thought “I should act politely”. When seen as an observation of the past, acting on it in the future doesn’t follow, but when seen as a decision, it’s explicitly about future actions. So if the effect of a thought is (specific) future behavior, it’s useful to consider it as referring to future behavior, so that you’d optimize it in that light, take consequences of the thought into account when deciding on how it’s going to settle as a judgement. With this change, you’d be able to notice that while it might be true that in the past you’ve been a polite person, in a given situation “I should act politely” does not follow and could be rejected.
You interpret the thoughts discussed in this post as judging the past, as they talk about the past, but their effect is primarily on your behavior in analogous situations in the future. A better response to these thoughts might be about developing heuristics that improve actions in similar situations, based on analysis of the circumstances of the past mistakes (helpfully committed to memory and emphasized for future reference by emotional responses), rather than assignment of responsibility for the past. It might be more accurate to call such thoughts “Pay attention to this and don’t forget to perform post-mortem analysis” and not “This is your regularly scheduled emotional punishment,” and act accordingly.
The easiest interpretation (explanation in words) of some thoughts is misleading. For example, affirming an aspect of identity, like “I’m a polite person,” has the effect of shaping future behavior, so it’s often more of a decision or precommitment than a description, and it’s more accurate to call that thought “I should act politely”. When seen as an observation of the past, acting on it in the future doesn’t follow, but when seen as a decision, it’s explicitly about future actions. So if the effect of a thought is (specific) future behavior, it’s useful to consider it as referring to future behavior, so that you’d optimize it in that light, take consequences of the thought into account when deciding on how it’s going to settle as a judgement. With this change, you’d be able to notice that while it might be true that in the past you’ve been a polite person, in a given situation “I should act politely” does not follow and could be rejected.
You interpret the thoughts discussed in this post as judging the past, as they talk about the past, but their effect is primarily on your behavior in analogous situations in the future. A better response to these thoughts might be about developing heuristics that improve actions in similar situations, based on analysis of the circumstances of the past mistakes (helpfully committed to memory and emphasized for future reference by emotional responses), rather than assignment of responsibility for the past. It might be more accurate to call such thoughts “Pay attention to this and don’t forget to perform post-mortem analysis” and not “This is your regularly scheduled emotional punishment,” and act accordingly.