Regret

This month’s Oprah magazine has an article that is aptly titled “Regret.” Kinda gave me the AHA! moment that Oprah is always talking about.  The highlights were that, just like anything in this life, you can make regret your “worst enemy or your best friend.” The author continues: “The past doesn’t exist except as a memory, a mental story, and though past events aren’t changeable, your stories about them are.  You can act now to transform the way you tell the story of your past, ultimately making it a stalwart protector of your future.”  Brilliant! 

Everyone has those coulda, shoulda, woulda moments in life.  Mine just happened a few minutes ago.  I really shouldn’t have eaten that second helping of greasy Chinese food.   While this type of regret seems inconsequential, any would-coulda-shoulda moment has the potential of crippling you.  I rarely regret things that I do; i welcome it as an opportunity to learn something. anything.  

“You’re finished grieving when you see someone gaining what you regret losing and feel only joy for them – maybe even secret gratitude that circumstances forced you to enlarge your own capacity for joy.” Isn’t that the epitomy of letting go and forgiving.  Forgiveness, is really one of the hardest things to to do. It’s an easy concept in theory, but its hella hard to put it into practice.   According to the Word, when God forgives you, he wipes your slate clean, and its like it never happened. In fact, when you remind yourself what you did, I bet He’s like “now, what now?” He never uses it to condemn you or remind you what horrendous acts you did.  That is a high bar to achieve. Is it even attainable? Is it possible for me to forgive like He does.  Where I don’t remember what the other person said/did? Where I don’t take use it at any opportunity to guilt someone into doing/feeling a certain way? Where all ill-thoughts/feelings about what the person did are no longer there? I say I forgive, but I know that I have not done all the above.  I especially use it to guilt people who have wronged me, and remind them just how horrible they were to me.  I know its not right.  I know. I know. I’m trying to be better at this forgiveness thing.  I try to remind myself that God forgives me when I ask him to forgive me (and He does it no matter how many times I do the same thing over and over again). Yet, I can’t forgive a mere mortal? Someone who’s just like me – human and prone to err.  Really, there’s nothing like the peace that forgiveness and letting go brings about.  I have a list of things/people/mofos that I need to REALLY forgive. And I really need to let it go, once and for all. Lord gimmi the strength.