What is sin? Am I a sinner?

There is something called sin. And what is it?

To me, you are either "in control" or "out of control" of your actions.
If you are in control, then you have done what you intended to do.
If you didn't make a "mistake."
If you are not in control of what you do, then you cannot be held accountable, or you shouldn't be held accountable for what you don't control.

Without a law, you cannot make a transgression. You cannot fail, without a standard of success.
How could people be saved from sin, if they had no idea they had sinned or were sinners?
The idea of sin is usually either doing something that you later regret or failing to meet some standard or breaking a law so you can sin against yourself or against a law.

If you break the speed limit, you can say that you are sinning against the law.

Usually the idea of sin also has to do with what you are trying to do. For instance, if you lose a race, you might say, "I wasn't trying to win." You can reason that you didn't fail, because you weren't really trying. For instance, we may sin against the law of one religion, but not that of another or we may sin against one person's morals, but not anothers.

Part of sin, at least about how we feel about it individually is related to what laws we are trying to obey. We have not failed if we were never trying. Then, there is the idea that some laws are "written on our hearts." For instance, the speed limit is a law we might hold ourselves to, but this law is something we learn or choose to obey. However, some people will say that humans have a "conscience" and that some laws (like moral laws) are written on us from birth.

So are we will encounter the idea of "sin" when we break one of these "intrinsic" laws.
What is the idea of sin? And can we sin? Are we not free to act as we please?
How can we act and then feel regret?
What is the point of regret? For instance, a child may take a cookie from the cookie jar while his parents are not looking. He may go along his merry way and enjoy the rest of his afternoon but, then his mother comes home and notices a cookie is missing. She then comes in and asks him if he has taken a cookie. The child then begins to cry and say he's sorry. He feels regret. The problem is, that in the act of punishment, the punisher wants to make sure that the punished is "sorry." If you aren't sorry, then you don't have the concept of "sin" in you. You don't feel like you have "sinned." However, if you do feel sorry, then you have the idea that you have "made a mistake."

So, what is sin?
Is it perhaps self punishment?
Why would we punish ourselves?
Perhaps because that is what our authority figures want us to do.
They want us to regulate ourselves - to feel sorry.

If we feel sorry, then we are self regulating? Am I?

Am I a sinner?