Shaun’s Bad Advice is, for legal purposes, a work of both comedy and fiction. And, as a Worcester Sucks production, is paid for by the good folks who pay for this newsletter, which is, legally speaking, either you right now, or could be you by clicking the button below :-) — Bill

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Dear Shaun,

I feel like I keep getting away with things. I thought I believed in karma, but I have yet to see the other side really get me. I haven’t done awful things, but I have got away with way more than I ever thought was possible. Craziest part is I think I have what younger kids call “imposter syndrome” where I think I don’t deserve any of the success I’ve experienced. I have never read your column, but I feel like I have no where else to turn. Could you guide me?

-Dismayed

Dear Dismayed,

I have definitely made mistakes [see my last column]. I have atoned for some, but not all. But I also can’t complain about my life right now. So yes, I too feel like I have gotten away with stuff that maybe I didn’t deserve. I have a wonderful family, a great community around me, a supportive system of loved ones and I am relatively happy. What you seem to be working through is different. I sense guilt in your missive to me.

I ain’t no therapist, but I do go to therapy. It feels like whatever you’re working through needs to be talked about, at length, with a professional. If the things you have done are so awful, have you sought forgiveness? Have you tried to right the wrongs you’ve committed? Do you know what is actually wrong and what is actually right or are you just going off what the righteous have told you?

My guess: you are looking for your feelings of guilt to be absolved without the work done on your end. This next part is purely metaphor and by no means is accusatory or based on a real scenario. But your situation, the looking for forgiveness with no real consequences, feels like if you were to have a couple of drinks at night. And after having a couple of drinks, you want to have a couple more. When you’re done drinking you definitely don’t feel good to drive, but hey you’ve done it before, you’ll take the risk. As you drive you find it more difficult than usual. Maybe you didn’t have a large enough dinner, maybe that last drink was one more than your aging body could take. Maybe, you shouldn’t drive drunk. As you’re playing all of those scenarios in your head you realize the car has stopped. You then realize that the reason your car has stopped is because you have hit another car. You panic and try to back your car out, but you can’t. You look and notice that no one is in the car, it seems to have been parked. As you’re running through ideas in your head of what to do next, the police show up.

Maybe you have a relationship with police. Maybe they recognize that you are that person that has a relationship with the police. You feel woozy. Woozy enough that it is difficult to find your license. Woozy enough that you can’t spell your name out loud, and even have a difficult time writing it. In your wooziness you ask if you can phone your friend. Your friend is also a powerful person.

We are still in metaphor mode here, but you realize in this whole hullaballoo that you may actually get in trouble. But then the police do not ask you to get out of the car, they do not ask you to perform a field sobriety test, they do not ask to check your ABV, they treat you like you’ve always been treated. I mean you didn’t kill anyone right? Your car is too damaged to drive and you are offered a ride home from the same folks who are not putting you to task. You got away with it again. And that whole scenario kind of perfectly encapsulates your situation. The norms you’ve created for yourself are protecting you from receiving any real consequence.

Here is my bad advice. Quit. Quit everything. Drinking, your job, your current life as it is constructed. You’ve got to start from scratch, like Bruce Wayne in “Batman Begins.” Go fight a scarecrow in Japan. What I wouldn’t do is blame the parked car, step away from your life long enough to where you hope the public forgets about your circumstances. That would be a cop out and you continuing your shitty behavior.

I don’t know who you are or where you live. But based on all this I would be embarrassed to know you, until you actually face your demons and heal your relationships.

NEWS

If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, come on up to the Portland Hotdog Safari. It is on Saturday September 26th and is going to be a real party.

Oh! Also stay tuned for some big Worcester Comedy news in the coming week. You’re going to want to know. Till then!

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What to do when you’re guilty and you know it