The feeling of regret hurts. It's painful. If I could compare it to something, it's like a being stabbed with a knife with jagged edges, having it pulled out of you, and every day after you get the wound stitched you get stabbed again in the same spot. It's a feeling that keeps haunting you because feelings don't heal like physical wounds, and the source of your pain is a past incident that you can't go back to, and can't change.
So how do you get past this? Well one thing that mitt help, and something you should always do anyways is learn from your mistakes.
Listen, anyone who has some measurable success in life, such as built a successful business, or has a loving relationship with someone special has likely failed and messed up time after time. But those painful experiences strengthened them, and they learned they took what they learned, and didn't give up.
This journey of enduring failure wasn't just a gauntlet full of obstacles that kept them from what they wanted. Their journey was one of transformation. Through their journey they transformed into someone who was able to receive what they had it in their heart to receive.
Now for me, I'm sometimes really full of myself. Sometimes I think I have the definite answers to a problem. Sometimes I think I can calculate, and analyze my way to get anything, and that I'm somehow superior because I can figure stuff out.
But the truth is, I really don't know anything. I just observe what I've experienced, and try to learn from them and see the lessons in those experiences.
And what has happened to me recently is I've gotten high on my ego, and I bet my self-worth over making a calculated decision where I thought without a doubt that I would be right. I fell flat on my face, and I'm trying to pick myself up.
This hasn't just happened one or two times. It's happened over and over again. I've failed, been broken down, and had my heart broken more times than you could imagine, and more times than I remember.
You see we learn a lot in life. We learn and then we make new decisions based on these things we learned, and we try to control circumstances to happen in our favour. We want to make sure we never experience the unpleasantness we experienced before, so we use these experiences to our advantage. We come up with these elaborate, well thought out plans. But despite all this, here's one thing I've found:
Sometimes we really don't know how things are going to turn out.
I'm gonna reference a show called Attack On Titan (or Shingeki, as any geeks here will know it by).
Spoiler warning, BEWARE!!
If you haven't heard of it, it takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where these giant humanoids called titans have extinguished most of the human population, and these story revolves around these young soldiers who are capable of fighting the titans.
In one scene, the main character, Eren, and his team are basically acting as bait to lure this extremely tough titan into a trap, which is a secret plan that almost none of the troops know about.
Because Eren has the power to transform into a titan, he's basically one of the only ones capable of defeating it. He is about to transform, but his comrades plead with him to trust them and follow the plan.
Eren is basically like, "F*ck you guys, I'm not letting my comrades get killed." So his commanding officer, Levi, knowing that Eren is really a loose cannon ego's going to do whatever he wants to do tells him,
"Eren, the difference between your judgement and ours is something that arises from the gap in our experience. But not relying on something like that is just fine. Choose. Whether you should believe in yourself, or believe in the Survey Corps, myself included. I myself don't know... I never have. Whether I believed in my own abilities, or whether I believed in the decisions of my trusted comrades, in the end no one ever knew what the outcome would be. So I guess… you have to do your best to make a decision that you won't regret."
So Eren then decides to trust his comrades. However, later the plan fails, the titan escapes and slaughters all of his squad members except for him and Levi. Eren is later torn with regret, and thinks back to the fact that had he listened to himself and went with his gut, he could have saved his comrades. But in the end, his decision to have faith in those who protected him and whom he protected led to that outcome.
In our own lives, usually our decisions look something like this:
Do I follow the path my parents told me, or do I follow my heart and do something less certain?
Should I exchange my currency now, or should I wait until ours is worth more?
Do I move to this city because of the better economic climate, or do I stay here because my family and friends are here?
Should I stay with this person because we get along well, or do I find someone else because I want more?
Should I guard my emotions and stay safe, or do I love with an open heart knowing I may get hurt?
Do I play it safe, or risk everything for a great reward?
Sometimes the answer is obvious, and sometimes it's not so obvious.
Sometimes something happens which basically makes the decision for us, and sometimes we're stuck with that dilemma.
Sometimes following our dreams cause us so much pain that we wish we took the safe route. And other times we sit back and think about what we could have accomplished had we followed our dreams.
When we get wrapped up in our egos, we think we're too good to fail, and we give power to the perceived outcome, which is ultimately out of our control.
However, it takes humility to realize that sometimes things don't turn out the way you thought they would.
Through this humility of not attaching ourselves to the outcome, we free ourselves to make a decision based on what's important to us, and what resonates with us at the deepest core of our being.
If we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't, maybe we can just breathe, meditate, and find that inner calling.
Maybe then, we know that whatever decision we make, we made not because we thought we would get the most from it, but because we were mindful during the process, and found this choice identified with who we are.
After all, if we can't control every circumstance, at least we can control the basis on which we make our decisions, and not live with regret over what's in our power.
But then again, this is just how I feel now based on what I've experienced lately. I don't know anything. I really don't. My entire outlook could change. Maybe your perspective is different. And if it is good, I hope you share it. Because I would see it as a blessing to learn from you and try to see things your way.
I'm emptying my cup. I'm trying to unlearn everything that's hindering me, and I'm trying to learn everything that's useful and empowering to me. This requires humility on my part, something I historically haven't had a lot of, but something I need harness now at this time of my life.
Congratulations if you actually read this incredibly long, over-philosophical post
So how do you get past this? Well one thing that mitt help, and something you should always do anyways is learn from your mistakes.
Listen, anyone who has some measurable success in life, such as built a successful business, or has a loving relationship with someone special has likely failed and messed up time after time. But those painful experiences strengthened them, and they learned they took what they learned, and didn't give up.
This journey of enduring failure wasn't just a gauntlet full of obstacles that kept them from what they wanted. Their journey was one of transformation. Through their journey they transformed into someone who was able to receive what they had it in their heart to receive.
Now for me, I'm sometimes really full of myself. Sometimes I think I have the definite answers to a problem. Sometimes I think I can calculate, and analyze my way to get anything, and that I'm somehow superior because I can figure stuff out.
But the truth is, I really don't know anything. I just observe what I've experienced, and try to learn from them and see the lessons in those experiences.
And what has happened to me recently is I've gotten high on my ego, and I bet my self-worth over making a calculated decision where I thought without a doubt that I would be right. I fell flat on my face, and I'm trying to pick myself up.
This hasn't just happened one or two times. It's happened over and over again. I've failed, been broken down, and had my heart broken more times than you could imagine, and more times than I remember.
You see we learn a lot in life. We learn and then we make new decisions based on these things we learned, and we try to control circumstances to happen in our favour. We want to make sure we never experience the unpleasantness we experienced before, so we use these experiences to our advantage. We come up with these elaborate, well thought out plans. But despite all this, here's one thing I've found:
Sometimes we really don't know how things are going to turn out.
I'm gonna reference a show called Attack On Titan (or Shingeki, as any geeks here will know it by).
Spoiler warning, BEWARE!!
If you haven't heard of it, it takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where these giant humanoids called titans have extinguished most of the human population, and these story revolves around these young soldiers who are capable of fighting the titans.
In one scene, the main character, Eren, and his team are basically acting as bait to lure this extremely tough titan into a trap, which is a secret plan that almost none of the troops know about.
Because Eren has the power to transform into a titan, he's basically one of the only ones capable of defeating it. He is about to transform, but his comrades plead with him to trust them and follow the plan.
Eren is basically like, "F*ck you guys, I'm not letting my comrades get killed." So his commanding officer, Levi, knowing that Eren is really a loose cannon ego's going to do whatever he wants to do tells him,
"Eren, the difference between your judgement and ours is something that arises from the gap in our experience. But not relying on something like that is just fine. Choose. Whether you should believe in yourself, or believe in the Survey Corps, myself included. I myself don't know... I never have. Whether I believed in my own abilities, or whether I believed in the decisions of my trusted comrades, in the end no one ever knew what the outcome would be. So I guess… you have to do your best to make a decision that you won't regret."
So Eren then decides to trust his comrades. However, later the plan fails, the titan escapes and slaughters all of his squad members except for him and Levi. Eren is later torn with regret, and thinks back to the fact that had he listened to himself and went with his gut, he could have saved his comrades. But in the end, his decision to have faith in those who protected him and whom he protected led to that outcome.
In our own lives, usually our decisions look something like this:
Do I follow the path my parents told me, or do I follow my heart and do something less certain?
Should I exchange my currency now, or should I wait until ours is worth more?
Do I move to this city because of the better economic climate, or do I stay here because my family and friends are here?
Should I stay with this person because we get along well, or do I find someone else because I want more?
Should I guard my emotions and stay safe, or do I love with an open heart knowing I may get hurt?
Do I play it safe, or risk everything for a great reward?
Sometimes the answer is obvious, and sometimes it's not so obvious.
Sometimes something happens which basically makes the decision for us, and sometimes we're stuck with that dilemma.
Sometimes following our dreams cause us so much pain that we wish we took the safe route. And other times we sit back and think about what we could have accomplished had we followed our dreams.
When we get wrapped up in our egos, we think we're too good to fail, and we give power to the perceived outcome, which is ultimately out of our control.
However, it takes humility to realize that sometimes things don't turn out the way you thought they would.
Through this humility of not attaching ourselves to the outcome, we free ourselves to make a decision based on what's important to us, and what resonates with us at the deepest core of our being.
If we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't, maybe we can just breathe, meditate, and find that inner calling.
Maybe then, we know that whatever decision we make, we made not because we thought we would get the most from it, but because we were mindful during the process, and found this choice identified with who we are.
After all, if we can't control every circumstance, at least we can control the basis on which we make our decisions, and not live with regret over what's in our power.
But then again, this is just how I feel now based on what I've experienced lately. I don't know anything. I really don't. My entire outlook could change. Maybe your perspective is different. And if it is good, I hope you share it. Because I would see it as a blessing to learn from you and try to see things your way.
I'm emptying my cup. I'm trying to unlearn everything that's hindering me, and I'm trying to learn everything that's useful and empowering to me. This requires humility on my part, something I historically haven't had a lot of, but something I need harness now at this time of my life.
Congratulations if you actually read this incredibly long, over-philosophical post
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