On Regret and Nostalgia

Regret is a weird thing. How often do we find ourselves in a mindset where we can’t escape our feelings toward the past? Why? Why do humans have this ineffable ability to be nostalgic and relive our past experiences over and over, rather than live in the present world and be happy in the moment? We choose to be sad and wistful in lieu of being grateful for the opportunities that lay ahead.

More often than not, I find that I slip back into the same routine of replaying past events and people in my head. I see people that I wish were still a part of my life, I see choices that I wish I had the power to change and I see a different life I could have had. I am only 21, but regret is a damned thing because I have felt it as long as I can remember. What do you have to be nostalgic about at 14, really? They heydays of being 13? Yet, it was still present.

I regret that I am so bad at just talking with people because I decided to stay home rather than go out for most of my life.

I hate that I am so bad at any leadership positions that have been given to me because, at every opportunity in my life, I chose to run away from leadership rather than pursue it.

I regret losing friends because I am just selfish at heart. There are so many people I wish I could see again but that isn’t the way life works. I’ve made my decisions, so I must live with them.

I regret stumbling my way through many of the most important events in my life that affect how my life will unfold from here on in.

This shouldn’t be a big deal, but sometimes you are trying to swim through so much regret that the second you stop kicking, your body is wrenched down immediately.

I don’t really know why I’m writing this for everyone to see. I guess I would just hope to help all of you with something that I have been fighting for the longest time. Depression and regret are very closely intertwined.

For anyone who doesn’t understand depression and never had the misfortune of bearing its burden, I want to take a sec to really discuss what it actually is:

This week, I slipped up and stopped kicking for just a second. I don’t know how it happened but it did, and as a result, I couldn’t get out of the bed all day. Why get up? Your life is just a series of regrets, right? That’s what you keep telling yourself.

I keep myself busy every day, trying to juice life for any delicious moment it might dole out. French in the morning, followed by breakfast and guitar practice, class work, gym, more work and meetings, read, dinner and making/listening to music before bed. However, I understand this plan is flawed. Being busy does not equate to satisfied.

So why is it, that with all of this keeping me occupied, I can still wonder why I should be on this earth? Why does business not equate to satisfaction?

Depression, to me, is like that “floor is lava” game. You can bounce from activity to activity, person to person, place to place, but no matter how much you are keeping yourself afloat above the lava, the floor is always there. You are stuck in your room, seeing as you only have one, so it becomes a constant game where you must learn to get good at learning to wrestle and “jump”.

My life isn’t quite where I want it yet and very often I get very discouraged by my apparent lack of speedy progress. I tell myself I am going to make things different and I’m so close to the life I want, but in reality I still have a long way to go. This week I finally acknowledged that for the first time in nearly two years. I’ve hidden behind a machismo costume adorned with an ignorant, can-do attitude for so long and I finally have come to see my life objectively, sub specie aeternitatis.

But, I’m still here typing. I’m still here breathing. Most of all, I’m still here trying.

Regret is a cancer. There is nothing we can do to change the past; it is the ultimate symbol of finality, even above death. Humans are getting better at fighting death and elongating life, but we are still no closer to the past than we were when you first started reading this post. Each moment in each day slips calmly and quietly away from us and coagulates into the existing group of moments that have already occurred that we call the past. Now is then, and we can’t mourn the loss of a moment when millions more have passed in the time it took to reminisce.

I believe that the duty of anyone who wants to live life fully is to embrace as many present moments as possible. That is the secret at the end of the day. People who truly live, people who others tend to look up to, are simply not letting any moments pass them by without their permission.

I’ve endeavored to be that person. To have the level of curiosity where every day is a new adventure and life is full of mysteries ready to be sifted and analyzed. I believe being curious is the most important trait a person can possess. Who ever has met a person genuinely curious for life that they didn’t immediately love and look up to? How can you have regret when you are interested and inquisitive about what is coming next? Curiosity is, by its nature, forward thinking.

This blog has no answers, it is just my thoughts. I am not seeking to end the feeling of regret or determine why we even still have it in the first place (I’m sure it has something to do with evolution and the cave man). I just believe the only possible solution for someone living in regret is to understand that it is always going to be there but, we can influence the regret to come.

Regret from action is always better than regret from inaction. No longer do I look back and wish I had done something at all; rather, I wish that I had made a different choice instead. That is easier to live with. The times that I didn’t act are the times that eat me up the most inside and I refuse to allow any more moments like that.

Live life curiously. Push yourself. Don’t keep things in your head as that’s the only place no one can see.