August 23rd

Question Of The Day

7. We are most happy when we do the right thing. Comment. 

I agree. The most important point of doing the right thing is that we are free of guilt. Guilt makes us unhappy, and weighs on our conscience. When I hear the word "guilt", I picture a condemned person, dragging a heavy metal ball tied to his shin. He has ragged clothes, a miserably thin body, and a weary face. His eyes are half open, a half-open mouth. He sees things, but doesn't look at them. He walks with a shrunken back. 

Once, I was doing my doing my physics test one week later than other students, because I was absent during the day of the test. I nervously extended my arm, and now the test rested on my  hands. I went to the class right next to mine, and started doing the test. After I finished, I took a look at my test. "Good", I thought. I found myself extending the same arm to give my teacher the test, when in a matter of seconds, something had caught my eye. It was a corrected exam, lying right next to me. "Well, he's busy explaining the subject to other students. You can take a look. He's not going to know. Just say that you have to check something else on your test. Read the answers and put it in your sheet. No one is going to find out.", I heard it whisper to me. 

On that moment, I remembered of Raskolnikov, a character in Crime and Punishment, written by the famous Russian writer Dostoevsky. Even though he committed a perfect crime, he couldn't bear the fact that he killed two people. He tells himself that he is "superior" to the people that he killed, and that he was worthy to kill them. However, he goes insane because of the killing. 

"No. I'm not doing that.", I heard myself say in my mind. By now, the paper was already being held by the teacher's hand. It was done. I handed it over. I sat in my spot to hear his explanation.   Then, I felt happy. The guy wasn't following me.