Life Written in Ink

"You have to forgive yourself for everything you do in your life because you made that decision based on what was happening at that instant." - William Shatner

The definition of regret varies slightly from one place to the next. Most commonly it is to experience regret on account of; to lose or miss with a sense of regret; to feel sorrow or dissatisfaction on account of (the happening or the loss of something); as, to regret an error; to regret lost opportunities or friends.

Regret is your conscience speaking to you. Going over what you have or have not done relative to some incident or event. The regret part comes along when you decide internally that you should have done things differently. Life is like writing with an ink pen. You can not erase the ink, but you can learn from it.

What we must also understand is that most times our regret happens in the fresh light of new information. We have at that point benefit of having seen the results or outcome. You could call this having twenty-twenty hindsight. We than beat ourselves up with regret and do not allow ourselves to get past it. Do not misunderstand, regret serves a purpose in evaluating what we have or have not done in life.

We can not allow regret to chain us down from ever moving forward.

In addition to the above quote, William Shatner tells the following story as an example. "I lived close enough to where Marlon Brando lived that I could have walked to his house. I always wanted to talk to him. Never did. I knew a lot of people in common with Laurence Olivier. I could have talked to him. Never did. I know they would have taken my call. I could have taken them to lunch. But because I thought they might not, I didn't do it. I wish I had."

This story gives us insight to a couple of things; one is that regret serves a purpose of learning and the second is to move on with this new learned experience. You learn from examining (in one way) your regret and how things happened. Regret is not something you can linger on. You made your decisions based upon what you knew or thought you knew at the time.

Learn, move on.

You now have more understanding from having learned, you do not let the regret hold you back. The new found revelation or knowledge allows your life to grow; you make that phone call, send that letter or change your behavior.

Break the chain of regret that holds you back in life. It is a heavy stone that would make a perfect stone for your path in life. Lay it down, empty your wagon of those regrets and move on to greater things.

Stay inspired my friends.