Too Few To Mention?

Jaye of winding road in an urban area writes:

Can you look in the mirror and say to yourself, “Self, I have no regrets?”

Wouldn’t it be marvelous to say what you should have said when you should have said it?

Wouldn’t it be grand to do what you should have done when you should have done it?

…What do you regret? How can you make peace with yourself?

Frank Sinatra (you know, “I did it my waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”) I’m not. I have regrets. It’s just unavoidable. My list of things-I’d-do-differntly-if-I-knew-then-what-I-know-now is somewhat extensive. But the way I see it, I’d save my “do-overs” for the really big stuff.

Probably my biggest regret is not discovering my ADD sooner, since that would have meant getting a treatment and getting a handle on it sooner. which would have meant avoiding some huge and painful professional and personal failures. And nevermind that new-agey stuff about what I might have “learned” from those failures and how I might have “grown” from that pain. I’d much rather have not had that pain if it could be avoided, thank you very much. I’m sure I could have learned as much and grown as much, in different ways perhaps, while hurting a lot less.

I think might also eliminate the other regret I find myself feeling lately, and that’s not figuring out sooner what I wanted to do with my life, before I had the commitments and responsibilities I do now, and when I had lots more free time in which to accomplish it. I think I might be a bit more fulfilled in some areas of my life if that had worked out differently.

Those are the big things. The little things are countless. There’s too many. Words I might not have said. Things I might have done, given the chance again. Just today I was thinking how I wish I’d learned piano well enough to accompany myself singing. (Of course, I can still learn the piano if I’m willing to commit to it, and I might even learn it well enough to accompany myself.)

Of course, then there’s the matter of the life I have now, many aspects of which (my relationships with my partner and my son, etc.) I’m quite happy with and don’t want to change. The only condition I might put on the above changes is that I’d want to keep the parts of my life that I am happy with now.

How do I make peace with myself about the things I regret? I’m not sure. I think it’s an ongoing process. It starts with letting myself off the hook about the past. I’m reminded of a quote I heard once, I think from Maya Angelou. I’m paraphrasing, but the basic quote is “You did then what you knew to do. When you knew better, you did better.” Ten or fifteen years ago, I just didn’t know I had ADD, so I didn’t know how to seek the right treatment. I didn’t know how to learn strategies to manage it. So, it caused me a lot of problems that I might have avoided. When I did learn about my ADD, I sought out treatments until I found something that worked, and I learned strategies to manage it, and significantly decrease its negative effects in my life.

As for what I want to do with my life, I’m still figuring that out. In the past, I at least knew enough to know that I didn’t know what I wanted to do. At least now I know myself better than I did 10 or 15 years ago.

When it comes to the past, I remind myself that I did the best I could with the knowledge and information I had. When it comes to today, I try to do the best I can with the knowledge and information I have. That is all I can do. Some days it’s easier to remember that than others.