“Masha, I get the feeling from you that you think life is like a double-entry bookkeeping system, where the debts go on one side and the assets go on the other and you need the assets to exceed the debts or you go bankrupt. That is not how it works. That’s why all the good things you’ve done have not made you feel any better: you keep waiting for the good deeds to cancel out the bad and since that never happens, you feel like you’re drowning in ethical debt. You will never pay off your debts, Masha, because the past is unalterable. “Someday, you will figure out that the reason you feel so bad
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