Ever done anything you regret?
Do you regret not doing something?
Keep reading.
We all have regrets of one sort or another.
I should have…
If only…
or
How could I have done that?
What was I thinking?
Everyone does.
Okay, maybe not you, but the rest of us do 🙂
The point I will make here is better choices lead to less regrets.
The, ‘What Was I Thinking’ Regrets.
Isn’t it odd that with only the title of this post you were already thinking?  And with the title for this section you thought even more, didn’t you?
Your mind was targeting bad memories that you’d rather not think about.
How do I know?
Because that’s what happened to me. If we aren’t honest with ourselves, we will tell ourselves that they were all in the distant past.
But, were they?
We all have things that we wouldn’t want publicized across the front page of a newspaper. Some distant and some not so distant. Some would include alcohol, narcotics, etc.
Some may not be ‘helped’ along by a substance but more of a pattern: anger, fear, vindictiveness, etc. We repeat the very regrets we regret at times! For more on this read this article…Getting out of a rut.
The regret you shouldn’t have done could last a week, or maybe 10 to life! Some regrets turn into habits (patterns).
Be careful.
The bad thing about both kinds of regrets is that you can’t go back in time and delete them like something in a file. Some won’t stick. Others will.
My objective with this post is the same as my objective with Today Has Power, to build others up. So, there is good news. It’s called a filter.
But first, let’s tackle the other regret.
The ‘Why Didn’t I Do It’ Regrets
These can be a bit better and a more optimistic lot.
But, still sad.
They may include things like: education, employment, hobbies. They include things never started as well as things never finished. There are age constraints on certain things in life. Some things have a window of opportunity that closes. Others don’t. There are things that can be done no matter your age. For more on that read this post on Grandma Moses 🙂
Life itself also poses challenges such as: family, bills, etc.
This is part of our experience.
Choices.
I will bring both regrets together like this:
THE GREAT FILTER
To fully disinfect suspect water using a water filter, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends:
- mechanically filtering the water,
- treating it with a halogen (chlorine or an iodine solution),
- letting it sit 15 to 60 minutes,
- then drinking.
Anyone ever suffered side effects from tainted water? Well worth the prevention, no?
What if we were to take that same precaution with choices we make, before we make them? I’m not talking whether you put some feta, asiago, or parmesan as a salad topper (or even all 3, more is better!). But choices that will have a real and lasting impact on you.
It would look the same for either something we should be doing or shouldn’t be.
- Give thought to the choice. What is on the line?
- Include reasoning on both sides of the topic. How will I feel if I do or don’t do this?
- Allow for time. The more serious the implications, the more time given. Although, I will make a sidenote: If you are needing an hour to decide whether you should spend your Friday night getting sloppy drunk or working on something constructive…get real.
- Ask someone that you respect to reason it out with you.
- Above all, run it through this filter: Will it fulfill, or kill? Think about this on a deeper level. How will I look at this a week from now? A month? A year? 10 years? Will it truly fulfill me in some way? Will it be temporal and laden with side effects (guilt, sadness, etc.).
- Make your choice and live with it. With no regrets, of course.
Live this week and the next and the next without regrets of either flavor.
Live it with a smile, and…
Live it LOUD!
Remember friend, you are the only you, you have.