“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for
the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” Sydney Smith
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Never Live in Regret
I am sure we all have done plenty of things in our time that we are not happy with but what we fail to realize is that at the time there was a reason why we did what we did. At the time it felt like the right thing to do or say.
I am a true believer in never living in regret. I am happy to admit that I do not regret anything I have ever done and said. Now with that said it does not mean I wish certain things did not happen or that I wished I handled certain situations better, but I have learned that the results of all our actions make us who we are.
You hear stories of people who get divorced and say they regret meeting the person they married. What people fail to admit is that they would not be who they are after the divorce if the marriage never happened. They experienced love, they experienced sharing their life with someone else and what compromise is all about. Some people had children, they got to experience being a parent. Some marriages fail because people find someone else they felt they were meant to be with. Other marriages fail because people can not get along. Yes, in the end it did not work out and no one wants to get a divorce, but you can not regret the lessons you did learn from it.
Another example is some people say they regret staying at the same job after getting laid off, but we all know we all are creatures of comfort and change is hard. Our job becomes a big part of our routine. Most of the hours of our lives are spent at our job. How many of us can really say we have a resume filled with different work experiences because we choose to? Not many, most of us left our company because of a reason, not to expand on our experiences.
We can not live our lives regretting things we have done in the past, the goal is to learn from the things we have done and move forward.
Wishing we did something different is not the same as regretting it happened. Look at each experience in life as a lesson. Maybe good things will come out of it down the road, maybe not. Maybe we will see the results of our actions maybe we won't. But never regret anything because the reality is it's too late to go back and fix it anyway and you can only change going forward!
I am a true believer in never living in regret. I am happy to admit that I do not regret anything I have ever done and said. Now with that said it does not mean I wish certain things did not happen or that I wished I handled certain situations better, but I have learned that the results of all our actions make us who we are.
You hear stories of people who get divorced and say they regret meeting the person they married. What people fail to admit is that they would not be who they are after the divorce if the marriage never happened. They experienced love, they experienced sharing their life with someone else and what compromise is all about. Some people had children, they got to experience being a parent. Some marriages fail because people find someone else they felt they were meant to be with. Other marriages fail because people can not get along. Yes, in the end it did not work out and no one wants to get a divorce, but you can not regret the lessons you did learn from it.
Another example is some people say they regret staying at the same job after getting laid off, but we all know we all are creatures of comfort and change is hard. Our job becomes a big part of our routine. Most of the hours of our lives are spent at our job. How many of us can really say we have a resume filled with different work experiences because we choose to? Not many, most of us left our company because of a reason, not to expand on our experiences.
We can not live our lives regretting things we have done in the past, the goal is to learn from the things we have done and move forward.
Wishing we did something different is not the same as regretting it happened. Look at each experience in life as a lesson. Maybe good things will come out of it down the road, maybe not. Maybe we will see the results of our actions maybe we won't. But never regret anything because the reality is it's too late to go back and fix it anyway and you can only change going forward!
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