Of Regret

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(Edited)

Raged by the unexpected and untimely malfunctioning of the door lock, she slammed it with all the force she had and now it’s locked. Ah, finally— she sighed with relief knowing that she can now hop in the taxi waiting for her. Oops, she left her phone in the room. Wait a bit, she asked the taxi driver and rushed inside the house only to find the door is jammed— ugh, what a disappointment. Now she regrets slamming the door so hard but it’s too late.

And that’s how a moment of regret is born— just like that.

We all make mistakes that we regret sooner or later. We may or may not be willing to accept those trivial moments as regrets, still, they are as they are. And those tiny moments of disappointment shape our lives and help us make better decisions every day.

From procrastinating to waking up with the first alarm in the morning to taking one more sip from that oval-shaped glass thinking I can manage, we have so many regrets in our life to count. Although we do not confess them in public and brag about our carelessness to act cool, behind the scene, away from the crowd, we wish if this didn’t happen.

However, regrets can teach us the greatest lessons. But we need to foster a mindset of going through every learning as long as it has a far greater effect on our lives than what’s visible at this moment. Often time, we fall through the cracks as we want immediate results and shot-time success. But as every learning session involves a curve, it takes time to master it. And from your starting point to the ending one, there will be ups and downs where our brain acts as the modifier whether to stick to the learning or labelling it as not-so-important and dumping it in the process.

If our brain is somehow convinced that our little mistakes are nothing but the subjects to regret and considered as deformed negativity, the chances are it will remain as regret for our whole life, restraining us from harnessing the positive energy it may entail. But that demands the strongest attitude of all and I think the quota is reserved for the doers.

So, what’s with the loafers like me?

Well, there is plenty of time to regret those moments. And people like me are never tired of reminiscing them the whole day, every day until we are occupied with a more devastating thing that we have probably committed recently or are about to do with confidence.

And the loop continues.

The most interesting this is, that we know that we have regrets to cry over, but what we do not understand is that those moments are repetitive and unless we learn our lessons in time, we will be doing them again and again, making our list of regrets longer with every passing day.

On top of that, at a certain age, we recollect all those memories and make it our habit to turn them into examples and lecture the folks about them, warn them not to be victimised by the same practice. These are our elders and soon we will replace them with full force, uttering the same lecture again and again until we die.

It is our careless act that inspires our elders (soon it will be us) to keep preaching the words of wisdom(!) like a nagging hawker trying to sell his useless balm with countless benefits and promises. Although the lesson our elders try to convey through their lectures is not rubbish, still, their reluctance sometimes makes them feel so. Eventually, we never find the hidden essence of those messages and keep creating regretful moments without exception.


Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash



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7 comments
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To be sincere, when you do something that makes you regret, you will learn from it and may not wants to go back to it any longer. I still saw some people who seems lacking the image of regret. This is not the best.

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To be sincere, when you do something that makes you regret, you will learn from it and may not wants to go back to it any longer.

This is exactly what I tried to convey through the post. And as you've mentioned, there are still some people walking the same path again without a sense of regret. Forget them, they won't listen unless it's too late.
Thanks for stopping by.

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However, regrets can teach us the greatest lessons.

Well, I truly do agree with the line but I have a question like when can It teach us the greatest lessons? By analysing the regretful moments of our life, finding out the mistakes and following the only process can teach us the greatest lessons of our life, right? What do you think, Is there anything left to add?

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when can It teach us the greatest lessons?

The moment you realise you have made a mistake and there were better ways to do that, this is when you learn the lesson. Identifying the other ways that could solve the problem in better ways without any harm is your findings here, and to reach that level, one must analyse the event and figure out all possible alternatives, which you already have mentioned.

There are always more things to add, but my little brain can't figure them out right now :)

Thank you very much for your opinion. It has highlighted a crucial point I missed in my post.

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You're welcome Nyn bhai. By the way It was a good read overall.

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