Warning: I’m not sure how much sense this makes due to my poor ability to articulate my thoughts, but bear with me.
A lot of people, many of them being extremely smart, like to act like they live by the idea of “no regrets,” like they do not regret anything they’ve done in life. I’ve heard a lot of really dumb people say this too, and it’s clearly just a way to try and make themselves feel better and appear (to themself or others) that they don’t care, when they actually do.
In theory the idea of no regrets is great. But I don’t think it can be true.
I have to be real – I regret all kinds of stuff. A friend recently asked me if I had any regrets, and I said that I had one. It was a major thing that came into my mind first. I’ve been thinking about this for about a week, and a lot of other things have come up.
Sure, I’m fine with how things have turned out. I’m very happy right now. It’s not like these regrets are paralyzing me. But damn, a few different choices here and there would have made things much easier along the way. I absolutely have regret regarding these things.
I guess I shouldn’t say that nobody lives without real regret. Maybe a small handful of people on the planet can. Only a very very very high level monk or philosopher would be capable of that. Maybe. I’m not there and you probably aren’t either.
There is a difference I see between these two things:
1) Learning from mistakes and being ok with them, but acknowledging (today) that if given a chance to go back in time, that present you would watch and quietly hope for a different decision from clueless back-in-the-past you who doesn’t know how things turn out. You have to be able to get really honest without yourself here.
I know that if I could watch past me reacting at the crossroads of certain decisions, I’d be cheering for a certain outcome that I know doesn’t lead me to crash and burn (aka the one I DIDN’T make before), regardless of how great things turn out in the end. That’s just me being real. Maybe I’m just curious about the path not taken, who knows?
There has got to be an event, or several of them, in your life that would fit here. If not, then you are really amazing and send me an email saying I’m wrong. But then I probably wouldn’t believe you. And we’d be right back here again.
And… 2) Not having regret at all (which pretty much nobody is capable of).
These are my thoughts today on this. Like anything, they could and probably will change. Maybe dramatically. This goes against about a million things I’ve read on this subject, but shit, I just don’t agree with all that right now. Saying, “I have no regrets” and actually meaning it waaaaaay deep down when you get brutally honest with yourself are very different things.
Maybe I’ll even regret writing this someday 