Regret Me Not

Stop for just a moment and look back on the past 24 hours of your life. Evaluate all your actions, your motives, your decisions, your accomplishments and what you may have put off until tomorrow. Ask yourself, “How am I going to feel tomorrow about today?”


Think about today as a day you can never return to and in tomorrow as a day too late. As decisions are made in a day’s time and throughout your life, take time to ask yourself how you will proceed to feel about your decision 5, 10, 20 or even 50 years down the road. We are all given the gift of living in the moment, and it is our choice and our choice alone, that will dictate what our future beholds and what will defy who we are and who we become.


Upon recently having a great conversation with someone I love deeply about life and about events (both fortunate and unfortunate) that have helped to create the mold to which we both exist, the thought occurred, “If a person is at one with who they are and can say with an honest heart that they are proud of who they have become, then can ‘regret’ in its truest form be said to exist?”… I stopped to look at my own life right in the midst of the conversation and couldn’t help but smile to myself in where my own journey took me. Being an ‘un’believer in the act of ‘regret’ to begin with, I began to consider all the tragedy and misfortunes (in or out of my control) that have happened in spite of myself and in spite of what I may have been striving for and began pondering the subject matter further…


By feeling regret for past or present actions or inactions, it places a mental boundary on where you are today and where you are striving to go tomorrow. You are never fully able to progress past that point in time, and you stay locked in what ‘could have been’ instead of what ‘is’ or ‘could be’ as a result of that particular situation. To feel as if you are pressed between two thick walls of regret that are holding you back from moving forward will cause you to do just that… stay idle.


Feelings, in general, are involuntary. What does this mean, you ask? Well, have you ever said to yourself or to someone else that someone or something is the cause of or to blame for your happiness, sadness, anger, disposition… etc? To put it in perspective; although these people, places or things may have had an impact on you and may influence your feelings, we are the only ones who are capable of extracting these feelings and bringing them to life both physically and mentally. It can be difficult to realize, but we voluntarily make a conscious decision to choose our emotions and to choose how we are going to react to any given situation. These situations can make endless attempts at penetrating through our surfaces and walls of protection, but only we can let them in and only we can allow their influences to impart on our mental and physical well-being.


It’s easier said than done, but it is important to realize this fact in every circumstance you encounter as you have every right to oppose the emotions of any external force that may wish to inflict regret over you. Those who are stuck in regret constantly use these emotions as an excuse to not accept what has happened or is happening and they create a wall (or ‘boundary’, if you will) that prevents them from being able to access the ability to grow from the situation. Think about it… What if we all made a conscious effort to choose our emotions and what we let get to us, instead of impulsively reacting to a scenario? By realizing that we are what we choose to be and by taking the time to listen for the ‘reason’ in each situation, we can then take what happened and assess the stipulation to work out in our favor. In all that we do, there is always a lesson to be learned and a way to grow physically and emotionally to benefit our present and future. Without the negative and bad aspects of life, we could never learn to recognize and appreciate the positive or good things. Without sadness or despair, we wouldn’t know just how wonderful a dusting of happiness could feel.


One of the things I have learned about regrets is, simply, not to have them. I view regret not only as a negative connotation, but also as a burden, or weight, that stays centered on our lives and won’t budge. As I was conversing with my loved one and taking all this in, I was once again reminded of why I regret nothing that has ever happened to me. Sure, I will be the first to admit that I have made some mistakes as big as my accomplishments, and that have I allowed other people more time than they deserved to treat me just as bad as I knew I should be treated good. I know I have caused hurt to others and I know I’m not perfect. But, that’s not the point. By stepping back and looking at exactly where my feet are planted in the sand at this very moment in time, I can look at all these events and know that I wouldn’t be standing in this very spot right now if even one of them hadn’t occurred. In the midst of all the hurt, pain and suffering I may have encountered on my life path, I can now say I have never been happier and that I know the worst is over as I have lived and learned and know I am now in complete control of my destiny. I also know that the people whom I have affected and the people who have affected me wouldn’t be where they were if not for the interactions we had together, whether bad or good. And you can even look at it a step further in that the people associated with THOSE people wouldn’t be where they are at either had such events never occurred. It is quite a humbling and mind-boggling concept to take in and grasp when you really allow yourself to get submerged in the theory.


Reminiscing upon certain events of my past, I remember, sitting back and just wondering, ‘Why? Why me?” I remember thinking that I would never get through the situation and that life definitely would never be the same. I can remember wishing so deeply and profoundly that I would give anything to go back and alter what had happened. The truth is, time will never stop ticking, and life will never stand still for anyone. Just as well, we can never return to a moment despite what the outcome is. Apart from what we choose to do, or what others choose to do, need not matter. Pick your feet up, lift your chin, and let each moment influence you to do better next time, to not make the same mistake again, to be proud and rejoice, to take it all in and savor it, to become a better person as a result, or to thank the person next to you for helping you discover something new about yourself. If you cannot return to change something from your past, there is no point in wasting precious time wishing for the impossible. Nothing from this moment on is impossible and why should we expend more time generating more possible regrets by regretting what we ‘should have done’. This is like an alcoholic who is so depressed about being an alcoholic (and all the issues that come along with it…) that he goes out to drink his sorrows away each night. Now, does this make any sense when you look at it from this perspective? Didn’t think so. So, WHY spend your time wallowing in what ‘could have been’, when you could be using that valuable time (you will later regret wasting) to do something productive that CAN be done?


Simply, life is too short as it is. Life isn’t forever and each moment is here, gone, and in the history books. The story of your life is exactly what you make of it each day. It is written based off your perceptions, your realities, your emotions and your burdens and regrets.


Live and learn and make the best of each day as one day your time will stop ticking all together. Make memories, not regrets and let your life aspire to greatness with each passing event. How will YOUR today look from tomorrow’s standpoint? Your future begins with You.


Until next time, Faithful Reader…


"Have no regrets. The elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets." -Author Unknown, from Dreams


“Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.” -Henry David Thoreau


“Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.” –Johnathan Larson


“Regret for time wasted can become a power for good in the time that remains, if we will only stop the waste and the idle, useless regretting.” –Arthur Brisbane