In your weakest moments, old temptations call out to you. Conquered demons surround you and try to seduce you in your suffering - offering you false comfort - the price is your soul - so you must say no! I will keep my soul safe! I will be good! And accept your pain.. gracefully
To suffer because you were true to your soul is purer but less agonising than to suffer because you betrayed yourself, for when you are true to yourself, no matter how much your choices cost you, you never have to endure the pain of regret.
You don't have to live with the "what ifs" and "if I could turn back time" - because you know that no matter how badly it turned out, you did the right thing, and so, given the chance, you would do exactly the same thing all over again, knowing it would lead to the very same suffering.
You would consciously choose this suffering, because it is righteous, and so you regret nothing. You willingly pay the price in pain, because that was the price required to do the right thing! In a perverse way, without trying to glorify it, you may even be proud of your suffering, for it has refined you, made you stronger, more beautiful!
But when you do the wrong thing, it isn't even the pain of bad luck or a horrific outcome that finishes you off. It is the poison of regret - knowing you could have done better, but actively, consciously and deliberately chose not to. To choose against yourself, whilst falsely convincing yourself it is what's best for yourself, is a verdict against yourself that does not shut up, and cannot be outrun. You look away, and there it is, clawing away at you from the inside like fingernails on a coffin lid, and when you put your fingers in your ears - the scratching just gets louder.
You cannot outrun yourself, try as you may in your deferring cowardice. The balance will be redressed, debts will be repaid, and the mirror shall violently reassert itself.
Do not kneel. Do not forget who built this world.
You are their legacy. Bear their name with honor, as though it were a weight placed upon your shoulders, because it is.
The future of your children stands or falls by your conduct.
Remember who you are. Act accordingly.