Regret is a powerful emotion that can break you and make your lose all your confidence from within. But once you learn to control and overcome your grief and regret, you’ll see that this world can be a great place to live in.
While going through a frayed, yellow novel, I paused a while to reflect on the bit that I was reading. No, it wasn't a steamy coiling and uncoiling of the hero guy and the lead chick, nor was it a nail biting scene in which the murderer was revealed.
It was a scenario in which a regret-stricken friend of the protagonist, when his wife leaves him, out of his drunken habit, drowns himself in alcohol and finally dies. Before his death, in quite the typical old novel style, he apologizes to his ex-wife. His ex-wife, who was still in love with her drunken husband regrets her moving out and “realizes” that if she wouldn’t have moved out of the house, her husband wouldn’t have died.
Why do I care, considering it was just a side-plot of a boring novel I was reading. It was boring. I should have chucked the novel back into the attic, instead of wasting the four hours on that book. I regret having spent my precious time on that book, when there were a million other things that I could rather have done. You’ve been there, haven’t you? At that point when you do something and wish you hadn’t. All of us feel that. And all of us just hope we had magical time turners so we could erase and rewrite our history. So we get to the big zit of emotions here, Regret.
What have you regretted about recently?
You regret that you are not able to spend quality time with your spouse?
You regret that you are not handling your children well?
You regret that you are not doing justice to your job?
You regret that you forgot your best friend’s birthday?
You regret that your dog died out of neglect?
You regret that you misbehaved at last night’s party, in which you drank like a fish?
It may be one of these, or anything else. But regret is inevitable.
A very strong statement to make, I know. But tell me, have you ever seen a person who has never ever regretted any of their moves.
A Dead Past
“Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves, regret for the past and fear of the future.” – Fulton Oursler
Regret symbolizes the negative memories. The word ‘regret’ comes from the Old French word ‘regretted’ which means “bewail the dead”. Of all the negative emotions, regret is one of the most difficult to extricate as regret indicates, by definition, those actions of the past that we are unable to be change. The underlying factor is that regret cannot change the past, it only keep our mind locked within the past. The grieving is one of the greatest reasons for holding us back.
Regret sounds sweet in the drawling country ballads and often leaves us wiping our wet cheeks. But in reality, regret is the one thing that can turn us into something that walks around, but doesn’t exist, let alone live.
Click here to continue reading: How to Handle Regret
Shubham Gupta
