Regret

I was recently told the story of a teenage girl who thought her grandma was in the hospital for something minor and as a result she didn’t visit her. When the grandma called her at midnight one weekday, the granddaughter gave her attitude for waking her and hung up.

Unexpectedly, the next day the grandma died and the girl has said she is filled with an overwhelming feeling of sadness and anguish.

    This story got me thinking about regret. Throughout life people always come across instances they wish they could go back and change, some more drastic than others. If we had the chance, I’m sure many people would re-do many situations differently from the way it originally played out. But I can’t help but wonder when the phrase”everything happens for a reason” applies and when having remorse is something we just have to live with.

    People generally only have regrets when something tragic happens, like a sudden death of a family member or the loss of a job. We look back and wonder what we could have done differently. How if we had one more chance we would fix what we screwed up. But does life really work like that? Can we really avoid tragedies by being just heroic people all the time?

    Fulton Oursler once said “Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.”
   I am a strong believer that we can use the past to detect the future. If we are able to learn from our mistakes, then we can avoid problems in the future. But when a mistake is far too grand to forget, are we capable of accepting fate and just letting go? 

   I figure growing up comes with a series of mistakes we’d like to take back, and challenges we’ve tried to overcome. Being an adult is about becoming mature and taking the more logical path. So what about those rebellious people who defy the norm and don’t follow the rule book? Are there always consequences for the chances they take, or should people just live in the moment? Does anybody ever know how risky they’re being unless something bad happens to them? Does anyone ever know how to live their life, and if so, how could they know?

What role does regret really play, and how do we use it to move forward in life?