On Regrets

Have you ever done something that later you wished you haven't done? Something that you wanted to do or believed you wanted to do but deep inside you really didn't want to do. That there is a certain force that lets you give in without even considering all the factors of the situation.

In this instances, not only is your life affected but also someone else's. The decision you made was based primarily on the goal to please. But in doing so, your principles and beliefs as well as others' are bent or disregarded.

You may even think that it's deja vu. That you'd think you'll learn from the past. Now that this thing happened again with you allowing it, you'd think that you can handle this better than before. But it looks like history taught you nothing. The only thing that you can think of is to escape. Then you realize that there is no other alternative. You'd make certain sacrifices. You'd give up certain habits. A small price to pay for some peace of mind and guiltless nights.

You'd wake up one morning believing that it was all a bad dream. That whatever  happened was just a product of your imagination. But then you realize that it did happen. That whatever you fantasized became a sad reality.

No, we cannot turn back time. We cannot undo what just happen. we can never bring back the day when we shouldn't or should have done certain things. Now that it already happened. Now that lives are changed. What we can only do is try to fix the mess we've created. We must make right the choices that was done erratically. We can try to restore things as it was before.

Then as we live the rest of our lives may these experiences leave us with lessons that will be engraved in our minds. To remind us what principles we live by. And haunt us of the looming sense of regret in not making the right choice.

In the end, we are ever hopeful that things will indeed be back to normal. That the lives we've changed will go back to what it's supposed to be like - you, going about your own business while the whole world minds its own.

So my 22-year old self says

March 11, 2009