Ogden Nash once wrote this little couplet:

There’s only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball,
And that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.1

Perhaps the most powerful and poisonous of all human emotions is the emotion of guilt. Guilt can make a person afraid of their own shadow. There is a story told of the time when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the English writer, who created the character Sherlock Holmes, decided to play a practical joke on twelve of his best friends. He sent each of them a telegram that read: “Flee at once….all is discovered.” Within twenty-four hours all twelve fled the country.

The worst trip you will ever take is a guilt trip. It is a trip that will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and charge …