"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 means 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 really your conscience speaking to you.
It means 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 something different.
Many times our regret happens in the fresh light of new information or in hindsight. We usually have at that point the benefit of having seen the results or outcome. But what happens is we will beat ourselves up with regret and not get past it.
Do not misunderstand, regret serves a purpose.
It serves a purpose in evaluating what we have or have not done in life. But we can not allow it to chain us down from ever moving forward. William Shatner tells the following story in an interview with Men's Journal 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 a lesson from the experience. The second is we need to move on with this new learned experience. We learn from examining our regret on how things happened.
You should not linger on regret though.
You made decisions based upon what you knew or thought you knew at the time. Now you have more understanding from having learned from the experience. Just do not allow the regret of a bad decision hold you back from making another decision.
New found revelation or knowledge allows you to grow.
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 can be made into a perfect stone for your path in life. Lay it down and move on to greater things.
Stay inspired my friends!
