YOU, THE PAST, AND REGRETS

"In having we can have our share of regrets, but in living we shouldn't let them rule our lives."

Freya walked her way through the door still and composed, a grown lady of overflowing confidence and overwhelming beauty salvaging everything she could out of the moment jealous eyes had presented her. She looked and walked a queen she was up the bar despite not wanting to be at the party. She did enjoy the admiration, but not the fact she was coerced into attending.

For different explainable reasons they all felt her holding back wasn't and might end up not being the solution. Of course they did understand, they understood her concerns as friends. They did understand her fears, the very reason she chose to hold back. The reason she had head west whenever she saw a manly figure approaching from the north. They really did understand, but time unlike everyone was not something she had on her side. They were no longer in college where her kind of game would have made much a sense. They were now women, no longer girls. Turning a man down they knew for Freya might come easy, but turning a couple of them down at intervals they were not that sure. For that reason they had made her come.

 Life of course I do agree to a very good extent is not a bed of roses. And just whether we like it or not there will be those up and downs: disappointments following expectations, and fulfillment satisfying expectations. Pleasant things will happen as will unpleasant things. It is nature, and there is nothing you, me, or anyone can do about it. Bad things will continue to happen just as much as good things will. So it is not much of a choice than it is an option. Life is an attitude, and we may just have to deal with it.

While regrets on the bright side help us to keep our life in check, it does like everything else do more than that when it grows out of proportion. Problem arises when we allow our regrets to move from what they should be to what they should not be. This actually occurs when we start allowing them to gain control over our lives rather than influencing it. When we give them the clearance to control and not influence our actions, choice, words, and decisions to the extent every moment is lived in the fear of not making a mistake. In the avoidance of possible recurring of unpleasant events like our dear beautiful Freya. 

The fact that Freya once suffered a heartbreak you may be surprised is not an excuse to living in self-denial. There is simply a reason we have a past, a present, and a future. There is a reason a past is called a past, the present present, and the future the future. Life as you would have known is in phases, and for all it’s worth is expected to be lived that way. Freya avoiding any form of contact with the opposite sex sure is not going to in anyway erase the fact she had once suffered a heartbreak. It may however make her a successful single lady.

Every regret a man can have has its root in the past and not the present. You giving clearance to regrets to control your life is tantamount to living your life out of phase when by nature you are expected to live it in phase. Such life can never be productive. It can never measure up to what can be called a fulfilled life. Little if anything can be made out of such a life. A life taken hostage by regrets is a meaningless life, as much a wasted life. It’s like a man living his whole life in a dreamland. It’s actually comfortable, but nothing can be made out of it.

Having regrets I will say is healthy for us as humans. It does above all things help keep our life in check and sharpens our instinct. What is not healthy however is allowing it to control our lives. Influence is good, control is bad. Freya could have been careful in her future choices rather than not making any at all. You could have been careful in your business deals rather than not making any at all. You could have been more careful in choices of friends rather than not having any at all. When our moments of regrets influence our lives the former is what we see; when it controls it, the latter is inevitable.

As an individual I have my regrets, in fact they are many. And though this is true, yet it doesn’t appear to be a problem because it’s really not. Since it is impossible to live a perfect life, the inevitability of making a mistake may pass as a realistic tendency on individual level. Handling your regrets therefore may come not only as a necessity but a priority. You may need to in your daily life ensure and assume at all times a total control of your life. This may be your only escape from the past that so much persuasively want to hold you hostage. Instead of being threatened by your past you can decide to get encouraged by it. Instead of curling your body up in your room crying over a heartbreak you may decide to step into the armour of carefulness by being careful about who you entrust your heart to. And instead of trusting no one you can begin to limit the depth of your trust in people. And instead of saying no all the time, you may begin to say give it a moment, I will think about it.

Life I will be sincere is beautiful, but a few mistakes can make it a hell in a paradise for us. The choices we make, the actions we take, and the word we say. These things combined will determine how beautiful our worlds will become. In learning to make the right call, we indeed move every day a step closer into actualizing a beautiful world for ourselves. But whether or not this becomes a reality will be dependent on our readiness to let go off our past, and start living in the present. It will be dependent on our readiness to take the wheel rather than employ a driver called regrets to drive our lives in a continuously perfect circle. Whether or not we live a fulfilled and productive life here on earth will forever as always be dependent on our readiness to assume a total control of our life. Let the past be the past, and you can have a grip over your life.

Originally Written by Olusanya Olaleye