Realizing We All Have Regrets.

Sometimes it is as if I am the only person in the world. I feel so lost, so lonely, and I wonder where my life is taking me. This surgery has really impacted my life. As I sit on the couch in the home where I am healing, I lay there just thinking. I wonder why I chose to cheat on a test, kiss a certain boy, skip school, quit my swim team, ruin a precious friendship, hurt those I love. I recently have realized I have a lot of regrets. Regrets I didn't know I necessarily had, but have affected my progression. I somehow got stuck on the thought that since I had already screwed up, I was already a screw up. Someone reminded me of something I think I had always known, but never remembered- Just because we have regrets, doesn't mean that if we were given a second chance to "fix" those regrets, that they'd change our future, or make us feel any better about the situations that caused such regret. If I were given a chance to never cheat on a test, how would that change me? If I never had my first kiss with the boy I did, how would that change the way I fall in love? If I had never quit my swim team, what kind of person would I be right now? If I had never made my mother cry, how much stronger could our relationship be?

I've convinced myself that if I open up my heart to friends and family alike, that it increases my chance of getting hurt. I'm scared of getting any more hurt than I already have in my life. Can I even handle one more heartbreak, one more betrayal, one more failed relationship? But then again, can I handle being this lonely?

I can be in a crowd of thousands, a room of hundreds, a house of many, and yet in the midst of strangers, friends, and loved ones, I can still feel completely alone. Maybe I just haven't found someone or something that makes me feel complete. But then again, maybe the hole that we all feel at one point or another doesn't need someone else to fill it. I don't need someone to temporarily sit in that hole until they tear me apart. There is a possibility that I can sit down and really think for a second about my life. Maybe I will realize that even if I was given a second chance, I might not choose to change the ways I "hope" my life would change. It could just be that my life would be the same it is today, but with a little bit of knowledge added onto it.

So take a second and think of how you could live your life if you had no regret. What if you were satisfied with all your decisions, good and bad, just because you knew that life will happen one way or another? How would that change our lives. Maybe it isn't the act of "changing that past" that will change our lives for the better. I believe that it is the act of changing our views of our past and present that will make that change for better. It isn't that we make mistakes, its that we choose different paths for ourselves so that we can learn, grow, experience things. If we never try, we'll never know. If we never know, we'll just have regret. So wouldn't you rather have lived, than never lived at all? Wouldn't you rather have tried and failed, than never tried at all? Wouldn't you rather have experienced life, than watched it pass you by? I feel that there is more risk in regret if we do not experience life as it happens. If we choose to seize the day continually and let our hearts and minds rule our decisions instead of the pressure from our work, friends, and society- wouldn't that be a better way to live?

So maybe at times I am lonely. I may cry. I may wish to be anywhere else but where I am. But then when I look back at my past, I almost laugh at it. Was it really worth the extra few points on that exam? Was it really as good of a kiss as I remember? Would I ever have become the professional/Olympic swimmer I swore I was destined to be? Could I have changed someone else's life, like some certain individuals changed mine?

So why am I scared of the future? Is it because I am still scared of the past? Or is it because I am scared that I might wake up one morning and realize that I might possibly be happy with the way my life is turning out?

If this post doesn't make you think about your life in perspective, I don't know what will. All I know is life is too short to have regrets. And life is short, and I don't want to wake up and realize that twenty years have passed and I am still wishing that I would've tried a little harder in my life and aimed my goals a little higher. People die every day, and we never know when we'll go. So is it worth it to spend our lives wishing we could fix the past when in reality we should be out there living in the present and making our lives the best we possibly can?

I wish you luck friends, family, and strangers. May you make your life everything it should be, and even more than you could ever imagine.

- J


"A few years' experience will convince us that those things which at the time they happened we regarded as our greatest misfortunes have proved our greatest blessings." - George Mason