Regret Not

over 1 year ago

We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.
— Fulton Oursler

While a part of me nods to this statement, the another me thinks about a third entity that neither regrets nor fears the tomorrow, rather, it lives with what happened in the past and makes fun of those poor moments. I bet many of us do the same but are too shy to share it even with the dearest ones as society only accepts if you say that you’ve learned from your mistake and now trying to make it up. Any deviation from this and you belong to the gone to dogs category— very stereotypical and juvenile.

Regret is a common thing, a very natural psychological phenomenon but being too obsessed with it is certainly negative. And it has the power to make or break your future, no doubt. Still, that doesn’t mean you have to be celebrational to move the force towards ultimate success, leave it be, for sometimes at least. It has a richness that contents the heart and makes your sorrowful moments more enjoyable; a bit of masochistic practice but worth it, I assume.

Once I heard someone say there is no present; everything happens in the future and it directly goes to the past. Technically, if we think closely, the moment you are reading this has already become a thing of the past, and seizing the present moment is nearly impossible. So, we live in the past, for the future. And what we presume as ‘present’ is a myth; never to be attained unless you have the time machine. So, holding onto the past is perfectly normal. And my past moments are full of regrets as they cannot fix my ‘present’ moments but gives me hope to do things better in the future. That’s justifiable, isn’t it?

However, what makes my past moments regretful— it’s a question I have never got any answer to. I can’t really say if I should be remorseful for any of those moments as I strongly believe every action has some reasoning and when you have a reason to do something, no matter if it goes otherwise, that decision is valid. Now, this depends on perspective. What may seem okay to you may not be logical to others. They have their own reasoning while you have yours— which is right, depends on the situation. And this situation is very much biased as the act of selfishness may be in effect there. Involve a third party, still, he will validify what works for the greater good— this makes the whole thing questionable.

We often judge things from a definitive perspective as it comforts us. For the same reason, we find things to be remorseful of. But that’s a part of life and instead of considering them regretful moments, I’d like to call them events. These events form our life, a very uncertain phenomenon for the human being. If you limit life by such terminologies as ‘regret,’ ‘failure,’ and such, that’s not life— that’s an animated version of your existence; a cartoon series controlled by predefined movements.

However, the past is indeed a great time to review your life and many people suggest not to look back at it. But I am definitely not in support to erase it. Instead, I prefer clinging onto it and spending some of my time remembering what happened in the past and regret again and again. It gives me a reason not to do the same mistake again and if you ask me to forget the moments and move forward, I’d say that’s a good piece of advice and very motivational, but, no, I won’t try to keep them away from my life. Cause I feel like trying to run away from those vicious moments makes me like a jailbreak evading police at every corner and missing out on enjoying my life to the fullest. It’s more like living the life of a sewerage rat. So, I prefer living with it and mocking at those moments as I move (or try to be) closer to success.