regrets

As long as I’ve known of the phrase “no regrets,” I’ve resonated with it. 

For years, “no regrets” was my deepest motivator, what pushed me to evangelize on airplanes or go back to the homeless man with a hot meal. 

But in recent years, I’ve noticed more and more the dark underside of “no regrets.” I’ve noticed the fear. 

In the last week alone, I’ve been faced with many things I regret doing and not doing. Relationships I’ve invested in too little, commitments I’ve been unable to keep, opportunities I didn’t take. And I’ve noticed again how even with the things I chose well, often my motivation has been primarily that fear of regret. Even this blog has - on many occasions - continued purely because I fear the regret of ceasing. 

Today, an I was walking with an older woman told me “You don’t get through life without regrets.” I asked her how she does it, how she accepts the things she regrets. She didn’t answer for a moment. Then she just said, “It’s hard.” We kept walking. 

The word I chose for my twenty-sixth year is “acceptance,” and I have so much left to learn. But I hope that recognizing my fear of regret and beginning to allow my own self-forgiveness will be a beginning.