“We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.” James 3:2
“There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.” Ecclesiastes 7:20
“Regrets, I’ve had a few but then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption. I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway. And more, much more than this, I did it my way.” Those are of course the lyrics to the song, My Way, sung by Frank Sinatra. We all have regrets of one kind or another. We all wonder, what if…And sometimes we beat ourselves up over those regrets because we think life may have turned out better if only. As the lyrics state, regrets or not, we lived life by our choices good or bad.
And as much as we might want to, we can’t change our past. The thing about regret is that it tends to romance the past as if it were a long-lost love. It is important to understand and accept the simple fact that we can’t go back and change a decision or right a wrong. If there is one thing that is and always will be true, is that time marches relentlessly forward.
There is good news about the emotion of regret, and I love what Brene Brown says: “When used constructively, regret is a call to courage and a path to wisdom.” In other words: we can learn from our regrets. We can learn what not to do in situations. We can learn what doesn’t work. And we can learn that we should take part in activities even if they seem scary or we will regret not doing them later. Regrets come in many forms, but when we allow ourselves to wallow in them, they are always a negative influence in our lives. Primarily, because they are the very things we wish we had done or people we wish we had spent more time with or gotten to know and in the moment, we made choices that were not all that great and maybe even a little or a lot selfish.
What regrets can help us do, when we are open to learning from them is that through reflection, change and growth can happen. All three are a necessary part of our human journey. Regrets will spur us forward when we use them to change…there is that word we don’t like. The problem we seem to have with change is that we want everything and everyone around us to change but we want to stay the same, stagnant person we have been our entire life. Not sure I want to be stagnant. How about you? If we are willing to take a chance, we can learn from the regrets we have in life and we can change and grow. And that growth will help us be a better person. Sounds like a win-win to me.
May your regrets give you the courage to change so you can embrace life and all it has to offer. And BTW…if you would like to read more about emotions and how they impact us and ways we can use them to help us grow, I recommend Brene Browns’ book “Atlas of the Heart.” It is literally an atlas of emotions she has done research on, and it is a very good read.
Peace,
Pastor Beth
Oh…and here’s Ole Blue Eyes singing My Way. My Way (youtube.com)
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