People always want what they cannot have

“Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.” — Murakami

It’s funny how people can only have honest conversations about things when they don’t give a f*ck.

I met up with an ex that I have been with for years, his new gf is pregnant and he seems a bit stressed about it. Somehow, this pregnancy changed things between us, even though we are just friends. I wasn’t going to get back together with him anyway, that I know. I knew it was the right decision. But he said he’s sorry that things didn’t work out between us, that he tried, but I was already with someone else. He has a lot of guilt, he said.

The certainty of things changes how people see things. When things are ambivalent they could go either way, for some people this seems easier, less painful. But once something becomes certain, there is no going back, you’re stuck with the only option, whether you chose it or not.

My ex talked about the “could haves”.

I said, “But it wouldn’t have worked anyway and it’s not the reality. Don’t dwell on the past.”

I had the same problem with obsessing over the “could haves” also, it is painful to realise that all I got out of that was more heartache and time wasted. In hindsight, it’s probably better to just get on with the present, rather than chasing after mirages of the past.

People tend to dwell on lost opportunities rather than those they have taken. Once you have taken something, it’s yours, you don’t need to think much about it. It is always the things that people want but cannot have, that they feel bad about, because the things that they don’t have are full of potential and endless “could haves”.

Why? The grass is always greener on the other side.

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