Regret, one of the ghosts of aging, comes upon us one day dressed up like wisdom, looking profound and serious, sensible and responsible. It prods us to begin to look back. It presses us to question everything we've ever done: I should have listened to my mother...; I should have stayed in school...; I should have waited to get married..; I should have majored in something else...; I should have changed jobs...; I should have spent more time with the children, with the family, at home...; I should have gone away from this place, this town, this dull, or wild, or confining life, it whispers. As it is, we can now, clear eyed and more conscious of what the years did bring us rather than what they did not, understand why we are who we are.
*******
Regret is the temptation. It entices us to lust for whatever was in the past rather than to bring new energy to our changing present. It is a misuse of the aging process. One of the functions—one of the gifts—of aging is to become comfortable with the self we are, rather than mourn what we are not.
*******
The fact is that the twinges of regret are a step-over point in life. They invite us to revisit the ideals and the motives that brought us to where we are now. They remind us of people we loved, the sense of direction that drove us on, the commitment we made and kept. It is the choices we made in the past that have brought us to be the person we are today. The roads not taken may have done the same. But then again, they may not have.
By all means, we must look back. . . . We must ask ourselves why we are where we are. And we must ask, too, why we did not do all the things we thought, at least at one time, we wanted to do, we should have done.
*******
The burden of regret is that, unless we come to understand the value of the choices we made in the past, we may fail to see the gifts they have brought us.
The blessing of regret is clear—it brings us, if we are willing to face it head on, to the point of being present in this new time of life in an entirely new way. It urges us on to continue becoming.
No comments:
Post a Comment