"what would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?"
~vincent van gogh
i love to live. i believe that there are only three things in this world that we will carry with us into the next. these three things are our relationships, our experiences, and the emotional imprint of the knowledge that we gain through our relationships and our experiences.
i try to catch and correct myself anytime i start to have feelings of regret concerning anything that i have been through in my life. every decision that have i made has led me to learn valuable lessons through what i experienced as a result of those decisions. some of those experiences were extremely painful for me and/or others. nevertheless, every experience has been crucial to my own growth and i hope that any pain that may have been caused toward others has somehow helped them to grow in ways that they may never have had the opportunity to grow if we had never crossed paths and influenced one another's lives.
"never regret anything because at one point it was exactly what you wanted"
~unknown
life is meant to be lived. by this i mean that it is important that we take risks. if we never take risks, we will never have anything or learn anything of any value. imagine if we were to live our entire lives without ever feeling any pain or without ever suffering any loss. imagine if everything in life always went our way, exactly the way that we think we would like for things to be. if we lived in such a world, we would learn nothing at all, nor would we have any appreciation for anything. indeed, we would be very weak souls.
my point here is that regrets are useless. dwelling on those experiences that we perceive as our failures is counterproductive to our growth. to me, it seems far more useful to be thankful for the trials and hardships, the "shortcomings" and "mistakes" in our lives. when we remember painful experiences, let our reflection be postured toward receiving insights on what we have learned and how we can apply that knowledge to our relationships today. let us use this valuable, hard-earned knowledge as leverage to boost us toward experiencing today to it's fullest measure.
don't live underneath the oppression of regret! rather, use those experiences as stones to step on and lift you higher in life! put those feelings beneath you where they belong and rise up and heed the calling to live that is upon you today!
"the clock is running. make the most of today. time waits for no man. yesterday is history. tomorrow is a mystery. today is a gift. that's why it is called the present."
~unknown
blessings!
---j
"experience is how life catches up with us and teaches us to love and forgive each other"
~judy collins
