Regret

They say a living a life without regret is the best way to live. Bullshit. I say a life with some regret is the only way we move forward. It's the only way we learn from our mistakes. I define regret as anytime I say “I wish I had…” or “I wish I hadn’t…” It takes a lot for me to make a statement, which begins like that partly because of pride but mostly because I sometimes think I’m incapable of making mistakes (lol). When I do begin these statements, I think about why I had done what I did at the time I did it. I try to think of my state of mind at that particular time and what logical explanation I can give myself to make me feel better about why I did it. Many people do not like to admit to their mistakes or regrets in life. I think it is human nature to do this. A prime example of this is when someone makes a blatant grammar mistake. If you correct this person, they get an attitude. Nobody likes to be proved wrong and nobody likes their intelligence tested.

I will try to make this a little less abstract by, of course, providing an example. As a college freshman, I was new to living on my own on a co-ed campus, 2 hours away from my parents. I grew up in an African household which already warrants a certain level of strictness. Let’s just say I soaked in my new found freedom. I made sure I established a social life (lol). Maybe I should have spent less time making friends and going out and a little more time bonding with my books. Not to say I completely slacked off or anything like that but my classes were easy enough for me to get a 4.0 my first semester but instead, I got….below a 4.0 lol. At the end of the semester, my grades were average( according to my standards) but I don’t like averageness (yea, I made that up). I paid the price of “just chillin” my first semester by having to work extra hard and have extra sleepless nights the rest of my college career. Granted, I feel I got the most of my college and accomplished what I went to college to accomplish…only to realize that it really doesn’t matter to anyone outside of college what your grades were in college. One of my regrets/mistakes is not milking my freshman year academically. This is one little boring example. There are times now when I think back to things I did a few years ago and I’m like “what the HELL was I thinking when i…” At the time, some of these things make perfect sense but now I know that It’ll be hard to make the same mistake twice. Remember the saying “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me”? well the same applies here. If you make a mistake in the past, it will be hard to make the same mistake again and re-live your regret. If you do happen to make the same mistake twice, just go ahead and call yourself a fool. J