Do our mistakes cause regret? Are we destined to make mistakes? Without mistakes, would we still end up with the same lot in life?
Approaching 40 fast and I add up the mistakes, miscalculations, errors and all the times I chose one path/direction over the other and guessed wrong - and here I sit. Without each moment, depended on the other moment, would I sit in the same place today?
Did I, have I learned? Am I better off, more knowledgeable, can I even control the next move to stop a possible mistake? If I could do things over again, would I? Could I?
What’s worse, making mistakes - time and time again, or not risking due to fear of mistakes? How can others love a person with flaws and who is mistake prone?
I am saddened with regret over certain events in my life. I want to grow, to move on, to build, to become strong, to rejoin a new. We are exposed to the world, tempted to go this way and that way, find a path and choose the best. Is this journey meant to be done singularly or in concert with others? I think daily about moments from the past, moments from the nearly present and wonder how it came to be, how could I have done better, communicated better, given more, done less, been more open, less angry... If I couldn't affect change then, can I affect change now?
It has been philosophized that the 6 greatest mistakes of man are:
1. The delusion that personal gain is made by crushing others.
2. The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.
3. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.
4. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.
5. Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and studying.
6. Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.
Now I am truly guilty of #2, #4 and surely of #6. So what of this then, if I change perceptions and modify behavior of those grand mistakes, do I end future mistakes, reduce them or continue in a fashion far greater because I use #5 to grow and still refuse to change?
Can the future change the past?
And what of feeling
If I have had what appears to be an authentic feeling at the time, do they become less real when in the future I discover them to be untrue? Were they real at the time, authentic, true to the core and now less than real - does it make that time when those feelings were real a mistake now that I supposedly know better, have grown and I am now mature? Or is it that those feelings were real and true and the thoughts of today are false and give poor guidance to the past. Has does one know what is real in feelings and thoughts... how do you compare, grow and *know* the path is right, the feelings are true, the language is sufficient and the heart is a trusted organ?
I think the very essence of who I am today and what I feel is the culmination of all that is past, all that has been wronged, misguided or led astray combined with a self reliance on hope and a desire to continually seek out the better.
I fear and worry of the things not yet known and worry of the past mistakes will continue to haunt and plague me in the future. Do these past mistakes cause future regret yet unknown? Will the past be continually paid for with future currency….