LESSON 2 - Do Not Regret
August 18th 2006 00:55
Regret by definition is a waste of time, energy and effort... Regretting will never get you anywhere. Instead you should try to "learn" and not "regret"...
There's a comment to one of my posts here that goes like this... It's in response to my regrets about not knowing what I wanted to do with my life when I entered uni and thinking that it'd been better if I dropped out in year 10 and had taken up a trade...
"maybe if you had dropped out in yr 10 you would have had a different outlook on life... You would have hung around different people and your thinking would have changed. Maybe you needed that 6 years to get through uni to decide that you truly wanted to do law... and if you had dropped out in yr 10 you would have had a totally different view of what you wnated to do. Just a thought..."
It was left by the most prolific writer of all time - anonymous
But they really made me think and regret regretting~ haha... What I've come to realise is that the person I am now, the things I am doing, the things I think about, believe in, etc. are all an accumulation of everything that has happened in the past. Hence I am here in the now due to me and things that have happened the way they happened. That is to say that, there is really no point in thinking about alternatives or regretting certain decisions or choices I made in the past...
Now I'm not talking about "destiny" or "pre-determination" or anything like that... I do and don't believe in such things... I do believe in them because I think that things happen the way they do and there are no alternatives. But I do not believe that they were premeditated by some force and happened according to its will. That is not to say things happen by chance or fortune or luck either. These are just easy or lazy explanations for things that happen because one cannot be bothered or it may be impossible to accurately trace the reasons or origins of certain things or happenings...
So regret is useless... Instead if you have something to regret, rather than stressing over it, learn from it, so that you may never stress about the same thing again... That's being a smart liver~ (person who lives, right? ha)...
Ah, going back to my once regrets... If I had dropped out of school in year 10 I wouldn't have gone to uni. There are so many things I once regretted about uni... Well to say the truth, I still "regret" things now... I mean, saying is easier than doing right, and some things take time to change... Anywho... one of the things I've always regretted is deferring my second semester of 1st year... such a waste of time... Funny enough though, if I hadn't deferred that semester, I wouldn't have been able to take a certain first year course the following semester in which I met my significant other... to whom I owe everything good besides being born in my life... Without her guidance and company I know that I would not be half the person I am today... Now that might not mean much to you... but it's been life changing for me...
Now of course you may suggest that if we were "meant to be" as I seem to suggest, we would have met some other way... But more importantly we might NOT have met... But thanks to my "mistakes", I have been blessed with something that people go their whole lives searching for~
If you're reading this, you know I love you so much... and I'm thankful everyday to the lecturer for referring you back to my class~! heh
So regret = waste... learning = good!
Class dismissed~ : )
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Comment by Heej
Dota Stars
Oh nice~ that was a very thought provoking comment Adrian~!
Haha... so I guess for those who believe in fate or predetermination... then regret is a part of the package~
That's interesting... To what extent could someone argue about fate or the such? Technically it should be everything right? Even regret?
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
I've always been a little bit sus.
I mean, what about grief or mourning? Are these pointless? Is it better, when someone dies, to register the fact, and move on with your life?
To me, there's a reason you have the emotion of grief... There is some sort of psychological purpose. I wonder if the same thing can be said about regret -- that there is some reason behind it... After all, there must be some evolutionary reason, also, why people developed the capacity to regret...
Incidentally, the topic of regret in general, is interesting to me...