Regrets

I know what you’re thinking…what did he do now in some random bar with some random girl…the good news is it’s been a while since I’ve spent any time in the bar and even longer since I’ve made any new memories with a lovely member of the opposite sex. No, this blog is about the past, the present and the future. It’s about something we all try to make it through this life without having but inevitably end up making.

I was recently having a conversation with a co-worker and he mentioned that he recently got together with a group of guys he hung out with in high school. He’s now nearing age 50 and this was a core group of friends that he spent many of the “glory days” with, and they wanted to get together to reminisce about old times.

He said that he had spent a lot of time with these guys growing up but around his junior year he started going in a bit of different direction and while they all attended college, graduated and ended up with really good corporate jobs, he had tried college, didn’t like it and now runs a farm, a repair shop, and is the head of a pretty big township as well.

During their conversation they talked about college, all the crazy and fun things they did and how much fun they had, meanwhile my friend was thinking to himself how he felt out of place and began to regret that he did not have a similar experience as these former classmates. I told him that I had gone to college, lived it up and partied all of the time. Spent way too much time and money at the endeavor but finally walked away with a degree but in the end I wasn’t really doing anything with that degree, other than my summer business. When it came down to it, I was doing a lot of the same things as him, but probably started with much more debt.

There was certainly a time when I considered not finishing out my degree. I certainly could have done the things I’m doing now without one, but during my hiatus from school I felt a sense of regret for not finishing, so I went back, took the courses, got the degree and now it sits gathering dust on one of my many book shelves…which one…I mean, which one?! Where the heck is that thing?!

What I’m kind of trying to get across, is that if anyone gets through this life with no regrets, than they probably didn’t spend a whole lot of time living their lives. Regrets aren’t something that you necessarily see while they’re happening, in fact during your life you’re going to have several incidents where everything feels like it’s working out as planned, until the proverbial lemons sneak onto the scene and you’re left without the pitcher to make the lemonade. Bottom line is that you don’t know you’re living a regret until you’ve lived through it, some time has elapsed and you reflect on the situation. You then look back at it and say to yourself, well I wish I had…or, I wish I hadn’t.

You’ve probably seen or heard something along the lines of, “In the end you regret the things you didn’t do far more than the ones you did.” This is a great quote, but also a way of living to ensure that you have several new regrets all of the time.

I like to think of myself as a bit of a risk taker. You can probably see that by my many failed attempts at meeting new girls, or just reading of any of our random adventures through this blog. I’m never afraid to trust new people or try new things, which is a great way to live…but most of my biggest regrets come from some of these situations where I’m trying to live an open, bold life.

Another great quote goes something like, “What you think of as your worst regrets are only lessons learned.” I know I butchered that and I should have gotten it spot on since I’m kind of the “Life Lesson” guy but I think it kind of misses the point any way. Sure you learn a lesson every time you make a mistake, but that doesn’t mean you don’t regret making the mistake. You see hundreds of people every day that didn’t make your same mistake, but they seem to be doing just fine and probably knew the lesson in advance. Hell, you knew the lesson...you just didn’t know you were going to learn it again, until it was too late.

What about the workout where you try to leap a cavern and die?

Most of us try to live in the moment, even if you don’t think that’s what you’re doing, it is. You live your life, things unfold and they can either be good or bad. My mom always use to say that life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. It’s a common quote but it’s also one of the truest definitions of life that I’ve ever seen. Things aren’t, until they are…and even then they can still go back to aren’t once again (confused?).

I have all kinds of things I can look back on and call regrets. I’ve taken a lot of chances in my life and sometimes those chances didn’t pay off, other times they were just plain old stupid decisions. There’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother where the main character goes through a whole night having his decisions judged by the Knight from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (In case you aren’t familiar with the scene, the Knight tells the bad guy and Indiana to choose a cup that they believe to be the Holy Grail. The bad guy chooses a really fancy cup, drinks from it and shrivels up and explodes, to which the Knight replies, “He chose poorly.”). In this episode, Ted (the main character from HIMYM), picks the wrong girl, and continues to make poor decisions throughout the entire episode but as the whole show is told through the eyes of Ted 20 years down the road, he sees that what at first seemed like a night full of regrets, eventually led him to meeting the right one and may have been a blessing in disguise.

While watching this episode I certainly related to the type of night he was having and have definitely been in Ted’s shoes before, but I think the reflection of his past shows us that some things we regret having to had go through are simply life. You still regret, we all do, Katherine Hepburn puts it best here:

 

So I said this was going to be about the past, present and future. I’ve touched on the past and talked a bit about the present and kind of tip toed around the future, but while I was looking for pictures to accompany this post I found this quote kind which kind of summarizes everything I’ve been saying the best:

 

As Charles Bukowski said, “What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.” In essence, shit happens. You have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and carry on. If you don’t come out of a regret smelling like roses, redefine what roses are. You have it in you to start anew and make your tomorrows better than your yesterdays. Learn your lessons, try not to make the same mistakes, have regrets but don’t stop taking chances. Life’s not meant to be played safe, it’s meant to be lived.

My biggest regret lately…that it’s taken us this long to get to blog post 100. That’s right, this marks triple digits for this little past time of ours which means that if you’ve been keeping up reading every post, then you’ve pretty much read yourself a regular length novel and it’s only taken you like three years to do it! Congratulations you!

Thanks for reading, and here’s to another 100!