Regrets

I just noticed a couple of pieces by Siri Agrell in today's Globe & Mail about regrets.

The first, Harbouring regret, relayed the story of a blogger Frank Warren who collects peoples secrets and regrets and has published a book, Lifetime of Secrets. I found this interesting because if asked "What regrets do you have?", I would be hard pressed to give an answer. (These sorts of questions often stump me. You know the ones like "What is your favourite book?", "What was your best job?", "What's your favourite colour?" etc. etc.)

Here are thousands of people sending postcards to Mr. Warren with their heartfelt and tearful regrets. And I don't really have any.

But my point comes with the second article, Ditching regrets can heal more than the soul. I feel the title sums up something I truly believe. As much as we may have regrets, we cannot relive the past. Too often we have some regrets—although I can't put my finger on any at this moment—about something we've done or haven't done to a family member (father, mother, brother, sister, daughter, son, etc.) or a friend or acquaintance or even a stranger.

If we harbour these regrets and let them fester over time, it cannot bode well for our health (physical and emotional). Apologies and confessions will certainly help the soul. But most of all we need, in some way, with or without professional help, to move forward with our life and leave regrets in the past.

As parents and adults, we need to mentor our children by showing them that we can move beyond regret and learn from the situations that may have caused the regret in the first place.

This brings to mind and the end of my thoughts on this, the Mother Teresa quote that I mentioned quite a while ago:

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has yet to come. We have only today. Let us begin."