#52 No Regrets

If you’ve learned anything from my last post on introspection, you may plainly see that one of the benefits of utilizing this practice would be that you could very well look at your life and say, ‘I have no regrets’.

I know that this is a pretty tall order for most people as we are taught that there is right and wrong in everything about our lives and that when there is what we perceive as wrong being displayed by us to someone, well there is regret. Or we may feel we’ve made the wrong decision in some instance that may not have been the best decision. Quickly our sense of morality steps in to justify these feelings and many would simply succumb and “own” this feeling bad feeling. Carrying it around our neck like the proverbial millstone.

The common definition for regret means to feel sad, repentant, or disappointed over something that has happened or been done, especially a loss or missed opportunity. Or a feeling of sadness about something sad or wrong or about a mistake that you have made.

Believe me you would have to search far and wide to find a person that will admit to you that they don’t have at least one regret. More than likely it would be several. I’ve not conducted such a search and have only my own life to look upon for content to this subject matter. On top of that at my current age there are a lot more life experiences to reflect on and furrow out those old hidden regrets.

Just over these last several months alone I have had the opportunity to put my life under the microscope big time as I’ve endured some life altering experiences. My mere survival was dependent on my understanding of introspection first and foremost. Asking myself what the lesson was here. Why was this happening? What was I supposed to learn by this? In the interim of this I could feel the regret and then the guilt crept in. This is like handing a drowning man ankle weights.

Going back to the basic tenet that everything happens for a reason, which we’ve all heard but few believe especially when it has to do with them, I’ve now had to apply it to myself. And now since I’ve moved into the “higher rent district” of metaphysical and spiritual principles relative to all life, I also understand there really is no right or wrong…spiritually speaking from a higher perspective. There are just experiences. Some take us closer to our soul purpose where others take us further from it’s fulfillment because we always have free will. Of course, morally speaking from the physical human perspective that is a very thin line.

So, what to do, that is the question. For me, the regrets I’ve encountered just as a result of reassessing the last few months alone were like a paper tiger. They seemed real and had I hurt people, never intentionally mind you, but by default. I started to feel those teeth sink deeper and deeper into my soul. But my truth became my salvation, and I was released from the jaws of the tiger.

I saw my life from a wider perspective, as a soul entity choosing and having experiences in a physical arena. Could I have made more healthy or wiser choices at certain times? Yes of course I could have, and the results would have been different as well I’m sure. But I needed to learn something going down the road I chose and in doing so regardless of the seeming negative outcome, I saw myself as growing in ways I never thought of before as were the others involved in the experience. For the first time I could see the “reason” something happened in my life. I like to think that I’m a stronger and better person as a result.

As you transverse through life others come into it at various times. Some stay for a long time, where for others it’s a shorter stay and that is by design for specific reasons. The challenge is to see the reasons and be grateful for what you experienced. All in all, I’ve had a good life. Mistakes? Not really, just choices that took me the longer way around. But, have no regrets.