Guilt; Union College - What frightens you?

Please give me some advice. Any help will be appreciated!

He was a thief.

He ran in haste with a lady handbag, looking back furtively and frequently. I was sure he was a thief. I should have shouted at him, made him stop but it was a dark empty street and I was frightened. I hesitated and he ran away.

When I saw the question, this scene revived in my minds and I cannot help feeling guilty. It is not the thief but the guilt that frightens me. I could and should have helped because I had learned taekwondo for a year; Indomitable Spirit and Integrity are two tenets of Taekwondo. However, I did not help, which makes me full of remorse and compunction. Maybe I would stand out the next time and I would feel better then, but I would never really get rid of the remorse.

Mistakes do not frighten me; they teach me. Although irreparable mistakes teach me, the remorse they bring still frightens me.

It's an interesting story, but it doesn't really teach me anything about you, other than the fact that you have a very strong sense of ethics... I also don't understand why guilt frightens you. It's an awful feeling, but guilt follows mistakes or crimes (which you wouldn't commit), and you can't avoid mistakes. So I finished the essay thinking... "You're afraid of guilt... So what?"

Thanks for your reply, it helps!
Actually, "a very strong sense of ethics" is part of what I want to show... Integrity is quite important in our national spirit(don't really know how to express > < I am not a native speaker). However, it seems a little too much?

From my perspective, you cannot change what you did (which makes you remorse..) no matter how much you want to and the sense of compunction will torture you from time to time. It is awful, isn't it? =.=

Anyway, thanks a lot! I am going to rewrite it.