There is nothing to be gained from regret
But everything to gain from drawing lessons from the past
By Jim LaJoie
Sometimes, often when lying in bed after a long day, my mind turns to those moments in my life I would rather not remember. Those moments may be a mundane slice of life that was nevertheless embarrassing at the time, a word I regret saying, an action I wish had been taken or not. At times, the memory is of a more painful, life altering event, one that I look back on and wonder if it could have been avoided, where a different path taken might have altered the course of my life.
These demons haunt us all at times, usually when at our most vulnerable, our defenses down, easy prey for the regrets to target and wound.
Regrets are not worth investing time on.
I remind myself that often (although they seep through my defenses from time to time). There is no benefit to wishing past mistakes or events away. It can’t be done. They are now frozen in place on the pages of your life. You are not Bill Murray and your life is not Groundhog Day.
Rather than dwell on regrets, beating yourself up with what might have been, a better course is to draw some lesson from those past mistakes or bad experiences. Something can be gained from that, even if just the knowledge that you possess the strength to endure. Being able to summon the strength to persevere in the face of what life can throw your way is noble, something to be proud of. If that is the only lessen learned, it is still an extremely valuable one.
Setting aside regrets is much easier said than done, I admit. Having regrets seems to be part of who we are as humans, at least those who are even remotely introspective and feeling. Regrets are self-inflicted emotional wounds.
Even now, in my mid-sixties, despite what I have written, regrets will plague me, often when I least expect it. One thing I have noticed, however, as I have gotten older, some former regrets sting a bit less, some now even no longer seem important at all. Live enough decades and you can see the past in a different way, not rewriting it, but understanding what was truly important, or not important at all.
So, the next time those demons of regret come knocking at the doors of my memory bank, I will fend them off with the understanding that I have survived their repeated attempts to harm, armed with the knowledge life’s hard lessons have taught me. I am a man in my mid-sixties who has lived a life, one with ups and downs, one where I have made mistakes and done some things right. What is past is past. I am focused on the moment, and regrets hate that.
About the author: Jim LaJoie has many more life lessons to learn.
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