Relishing My Regrets

This is something that has bugged me for a while now; something I've never been able to relate to. I realize that everybody is different, that nobody walks away from situations having learned the same lesson, and everybody handles things of all extremes in their own way. But it seems that there is an increasingly common slant through which people reflect on their lives, that being the oh-so-trite prosaism, "I have no regrets."

I'm not so antipathetic that I can't see where these people are coming from. They most likely think that by banning the acknowledgment of any regretful sentiment from their retrospection - or at least of that in which they will admit - they are convincing the world and themselves that they have gone through no trial, hardship, or mistake in vain. That's admirable, yes. But you can take something from a situation and still have regrets at the same time. Can anybody really look back on their entire life, every event from the most miniscule to monumental, and not see one thing that they even half way wish they'd done differently? I can't even imagine what it must be like to live so righteously. Please, someday do write a book on your err-free life, so that those of us who are admittedly human can learn from your pansophy.

Or maybe it's that saying 'I have no regrets' is a convenient cop-out of having to actually direct mental energy towards something less than ideal in one's past. In my personal opinion (one that by no means do I expect others to see eye to eye with), life is all about mistakes. It's all very "I never promised you a rose garden."

I respect the philosophy that a person can and will learn something from every situation; that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger; that we may fall five times, but we get back up six. Therefore, in order to learn something from any event, you have to have been tested in some manner, however large or small. And to be tested means that this time, things didn't 100% go the way you'd expected, or the way you were ready for. It's kind of like a catch-22... or an example of that cliche 'bittersweet' flavor life has sometimes.

You can't have the good, without the bad. And furthermore, you can't appreciate what you have, until you miss what you once had.

People act as if admitting regret is the equivalent of walking around in a big city with a crimson "A" branded into their foreheads. Have you really done everything right? Have you always been completely sure of every decision you've ever made, and ever action as well? I, for one, will gladly yell a resounding "Hell no." And thank God.... It's what makes me quirky, introspective, intuitive, and more determined. A regret isn't a death sentence. It's ammo for your future strategies.

If you're reading this and are actually one of those people who proudly claim to have absolutely no regrets, and even have the brazen presumptuousness to predict that you will have no regrets in the future, then I apologize for offending you. Being cruel is not my intent, and I regret it if I have been. Seriously. I regret it.

But it isn't stopping me from continuing to run my mouth about it.

See how that works? Brace yourselves... life doesn't give a crap if you regret something. Guess what... It goes on anyway!

From personal encounters, I've found that the people who genuinely believe that their lives have been so error proof are typically the same type of narcissistic people who posess a 'my way or the highway' personality. Which in my opinion, is so sickeningly nauseating that the reason the FDA pulled syrup of ipecac from the shelves is not because of its health repercussions, but because there is really no competing with arrogance.

I have a lot of regrets; no, make that a ton. And I don't feel like any more of a failure at this life thing now, having admitted that. Makes me feel more apart of it, to be honest. In fact, someday I'll even sit down and make a list of them all, just because it does a person good to ground themselves and re-capture their bearings once in a while. It's possible to have a regret and be able to look back and see its purpose and value at the same time. How multifaceted of us, I know... the possibility is astounding. It's not as if by having regrets, I sit around and brood pathetically over them 24 hours a day. If anything, it's because I took them with a grain of salt, milked them for all they were worth, and have been able to dismiss them from my consciousness with no unfinished business.

I really regret sticking the bead up my nose when I was four. Why? Because it got stuck in my sinuses, warranting a trip to the hospital, and a needle so long that I will never forget it. Why is this a regret? Because to be honest, the experience plain sucked. Would I go back and not stick the bead up my nose? Not a chance, because had that not happened, I can guarantee you that at some point then and college graduation, I'd have ignorantly shoved a bead up my nose, not knowing what could happen. And it's a lot more embarrassing, I'm sure, to walk in with part of a friendship bracelet lodged in your sinus when you're 22 than when you are 4. So in short, I regret that I was such an idiot in kindergarten, but am thankful that I got the worst out of my system then, before middle school. (See how it works?)

Here's another example of how regret can exist alongside enrichment. I regret being so timid and reserved as a child. I regret never pulling anything worse than a 'green strip' on my behavioral charts 96% of every school year. Why? Because now that I know how obnoxious I can be, I am sad that I will never know just what blighted undertakings I could have created and annihilated. Would I go so far with that regret as to change that fact? No, because now that I am beginning to realize just how much I have to say, utilizing my ability to express it as inappropriately and raucously as possible is still a novelty for me, and it couldn't possibly be more fun.

If you're too ashamed to admit you have a regret in the slightest, then you're probably too absorbed with your own ego to have recognized any flaw of your existance - thus far, anyway, or enough to even learn a thing or two about the world. So you're not really operating on things you've grown from and lessons you've learned, but rather, your own ideal assumption of how things should be, and 100% satisfaction with your uncanny ability to coincidentally adere to those standards. Someday when you realize that maybe, just maybe, it's okay to err and even go as far as admitting it to yourself for the purpose of growth, you're going to wish you'd opened your eyes a little more throughout your life and allowed yourself some room to fall on your ass. Because there really is no going back and re-doing certain life lessons, so you can rack up the bullet points on your life's resume of courses you passed in stride (or if any particular mistake is anything like my abilities in chemistry, make that 'courses you scraped through by the hairs on your chin but passed nonetheless.' And that, my friend, is a regret.