Carrie wrote a nice little bit on embracing regret on her blog. (go read it, I’ll still be here)
Done? Good. Neat post, huh?
I have a slightly different view. Mostly it comes down to semantics, but it changes the perspective entirely. I have no regrets. Not by Carrie’s definition. I subscribe to the “play it safe” or “good enough” or “fear of the unknown” method of looking back. That is to say the choices I made and the things I did put me where I am now and made me who I am…and I’m pretty damn happy with both. Could it be better? Probably. Could it be worse? Surely.
But to really suggest that there’s nothing you’ve done or experienced in your life that you feel sorry about or wish would have been different, is just not likely.
Feel sorry about? Ehhhh…maaaaybe. Not sure about that.
Wish had been different? Nope. Not one.
Wonder how things would be different had a given event in the past gone differently? Absolutely. But I don’t wish they were different – not one – because changes in the past most likely put me in a different place now – for better or worse.
I attribute it this way: If there is something in my past that, if given the chance, I would apply the 20/20 hindsight I now have and go back and do differently because I didn’t like the outcome, then it’s classified as a regret. Simple as that.
And by that definition, I can honestly say I don’t. If it’s small enough to have not changed my life in any major way, there’s no reason to sweat it. If it’s big enough that it could have changed my life, I probably still wouldn’t change it for fear of how it changes everything. As corny and cliched as it is, it’s that those things didn’t play out in a way I thought best that made me who I am and put me where I am in life…and I have no complaints so far.
No regrets.
Curiousity. But not regret.
Plus, it was a good excuse to use a Metallica lyric as a post title…which I’m already starting to regret. Damn!