“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” Dr. Seuss

I’ve been trying to come to an understanding on regret. What it is, what qualifies regret, what regrets I have, an overall application of the concept in my own life. I have often said that I do not have any regrets. To many, this seems impossible. It seems such an absurd statement. And I suppose to many it is. It all depends on our understanding of what regret is.

To not regret does not mean I believe I have never done wrong. I have done a lot of wrong. I am human, and I will readily admit mistakes I have made, things I am not proud of. To not regret also does not mean that I am not sorry for things I have done in my past. I recognize that I have hurt people. I have done things that have caused others more pain than they deserved to bear. I have, I am certain, impacted others’ lives and ways I cannot even imagine. That I do not regret does not mean that I am not sorry for this. I am. I am sorry for all the wrong I have done. For every person that I have hurt. I do not like that, and I will never be okay with that.

To me, regret stems from the possibility of time travel. Regret comes from the “If I had it to do over again” and “I wish I could change this.” And in this understanding, I can assure you that I do not regret. If I were given the chance to go back in time and change things, I would not. Yes, there are things that I wish I hadn’t done, that I wish I had done differently. But now, I am where I am because of these mistakes. I am the person I am and I live the life I live because of everything that has happened exactly how it has. I do not regret because I am happy where I am. And I think if you can look at where you are and say that you are entirely happy, you cannot regret. You cannot conceive of changes to make that can alter your present and future.

I believe in some big thing. I don’t know what. I don’t know how to explain it. But it’s big. It’s the reason things happen the way they do. It’s this sense of things are the way they are. It’s this basic aspect of life. That things turn out okay in time. That we have to have bad things happen so we can appreciate the good. That life is balanced, we just overemphasize the bad and underemphasize the good. I believe in these things that other people don’t really think about. That they don’t believe. That they don’t understand. And that, ultimately, is why I don’t regret.

Because I’m me. And I like it.

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” Mahatma Ghandi

“People are stupid.” reads my Facebook status. Given, I wrote it in sheer exhausted frustration, but it still yielded some agreement from my collection of friends. Now, I find some humor in it. Each person takes the time to like this status with some individual(s) in mind. The people they consider to be stupid. But they’re people too. In liking said status, they agree that they themselves are stupid. We generally come to the consensus that “people are stupid,” but never do we believe ourselves to fall into such a category. We tend to think we are the exception to a lot of things.

I readily admit that I’m stupid. As stupid people go. I’ve done dumb things, made stupid mistakes, and often don’t think things through. I know I’m one of those people that others roll their eyes at. I’ll admit it. I know that I’m human, and I firmly believe that I can always be better than I am. So, increasingly I find it absurd the way individuals are able to look at someone else and judge them without first judging themselves in the very same fashion.

I try not to judge others at all. I do, I can’t say that I don’t. Even the simplest of judgments–man, that person is annoying…they’re overreacting…I’ve had to deal with worse than that–on and on. But I also understand that we’re each completely unique. We are prepared by the lives we’ve lived to deal with certain levels of things. What is bad to one person may be nothing to another. And each situation is different. That’s why you can’t really compare yourself to others, or compare others to yourself. It’s like comparing apples and oranges–they’re not really alike.

That’s my mini-rant for the evening. Still pretty tired. Hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of things and have some worthwhile posts here soon.