Regret — I refuse to live with regrets any more.
According to Wikipedia: Regret is a negative conscious and emotional reaction to personal past acts and behaviors. Regret is often a feeling of sadness, shame, embarrassment, depression, annoyance, or guilt, after one acts in a manner and later wishes not to have done so. Regret is distinct from guilt, which is a deeply emotional form of regret — one which may be difficult to comprehend in an objective or conceptual way. In this regard, the concept of regret is subordinate to guilt in terms of its emotional intensity. By comparison, shame typically refers to the social (rather than personal) aspect of guilt or (in minor context) regret as imposed by the society or culture (enforcement ofethics, morality), which has substantial bearing in matters of (personal and social) honor.
It is also distinct from remorse, which is more direct and emotional form of regret over a past action that is considered by society to be hurtful, shameful, or violent. Unlike regret, it includes a strong element of desire for apology to others rather than an internal reflection on one’s actions, and may be expressed (sincerely or not) in order to reduce the punishment one receives.
Regret can describe not only the dislike for an action that has been committed, but also, importantly, regret of inaction. Many people find themselves wishing that they had done something in a past situation.
I hear it from my husband and friends how I am too hard on myself, that I second guess (& third, fourth and one hundredth guess) my decisions.
Why is it that some of us are wired to live and let live while others want to control every action of themselves and everyone around them, there are those who have no conscience about things that we have done or think about doing, or those of us that overthink everything that we have ever thought, spoken or done. EVERYTHING, then live with regrets.
Believe it or not, I have been that person that uses “should’ve, could’ve, would’ve” A LOT. NO MORE. It doesn’t work, and it’s very, very limiting.
Why do some of us do this and some of us don’t? I have been trying to break free of this for a very long time. I still think about things that I had said and done when I was in elementary school! I am 44 years old. THAT is crazy. NO MORE.
Living without regret is not behaving recklessly I have come to realize — I had always thought that people who lived not continuously reviewing the past to improve in the future were not holding themselves accountable to growth. Now I realize that my thinking was skewed.
Living without regret is not limiting to what your potential is. If I am always regretting decisions, then I am not living in the moment that I am in. This “YOLO” concept can get out of hand, in my opinion. You need to have balance.
Someone shared in a training that I participated in this week a similar photo as below. There’s a reason why the rear view mirror has the proportion that it does to your front window. What I took from this was that the rear view mirror is there to help me to see what’s coming up on me, to be able to remember what’s in the past, but that I have to look forward.
Get out there, make your dreams your reality and stop thinking/living in the past if you do. This is your one life on earth — LIVE IT!
