Regrets

Some people live without regrets. I am envious of them.

I have a lot of regrets, in spite of a post written last year in this blog that talked about No Regrets.

I regret anything I have done that has caused pain or confusion for others.

There are choices I have made that I thought - at the time - were justified or good or right, but in retrospect it's so obvious that I was confused or had allowed myself to be deceived, or just plain selfish.

Life is too short to make some of the big mistakes that I have, but here I am - living proof that life really ISN'T too short to make those kind of mistakes.

Life may be too short, but the big mistakes do shorten your life. They rob you of moments you might have had. They steal opportunities that might have been. They replace real with imagined.

Life should be lived with no regrets, but that doesn't mean you don't regret things you have done, it means you live so that you have no reason for regret.

If I could turn back time, I would make better choices. I would reclaim the lost moments and opportunities.

But I can't. So now I will simply look forward and try to push the regrets aside so that they cannot claim even one more moment of my life and shorten it any more.  I have spent too much time punishing myself for bad choices in the past. I am stealing my own life from me.

The clock is ticking and I plan to savor every moment. Maybe if I fill every moment with as much living as possible, I can recoup some of the time I have lost.

Maybe.

Only one thing's for sure. I am going to do my very best to live the remainder of my life in a way that does not give cause for any new regret.

Because I have enough already.