Live Without Regret

 

Life experiences are the tiles in the mosaic that make up who we are as people.  We are all works of art in our own way, and have tiles that we are proud of, and some that make us not so proud.  The sum of the whole serves as a comprehensive picture of our past, and can help guide us through our future.  Therefore many people say that you should live without any regrets because you learn from the experiences that have brought you both joy and pain, and the decisions you’ve made that have led to positive and negative outcomes.  I loved this idea, and bought into it like an eager stock broker on a hot stock.  I believed it was the perfect answer to adopt for whenever someone asked me if I had any regrets.  I’d respond with an emphatic “No way!” followed by the prideful philosophic declaration of how my experiences have made me who I am. 

I felt so good about having that wonderful answer in my back pocket because I believed having a regret meant that you were somewhat ashamed of who you were, or that it was a rejection of a part of your personality.  But as I’ve matured I’ve begun to realize, it’s just looking at a situation and if you could do it over again you would do something differently.  It means that even through regret, you can still have taken away a valuable educational experience from that situation, and you can still feel apologetic for your words or for an action or lack of action.

With this new frame of reference I’ve come to believe that I share with many other people one specific regret in common.  The regrets are the times in my life and possibly in yours that we were not our true authentic self.  I’m not referencing lying, that’s not what that means.  I’m talking about the times where some specific thought was held in, words were not said, or there was a lack of vulnerability to someone you trust.  This can even extend to being too proud to give in, or to admit to being wrong when deep down you were cognizant of your erroneous stance on something.

I wrote about vulnerability before in my post ‘Be Vulnerable’ and it’s a subject matter that has really great odds of surfacing again because it is the root of where your authentic self lies.  You see we have this thing in our life and in our society where we need to save ‘face’.  Face saving is a sociological concept that I’ve studied through the lens of interpersonal communication during graduate school.  It’s where shame, and pride reside as we interact with others in society because we desire for others to perceive us in a positive way.  Therefore we will hide our vulnerability, to meet the expectations of others or even ourselves so that we are not perceived as too soft or so that our pride doesn’t take a hit, or to be strong for someone else.  But what about you, what about yourself.  Why hide something that is truly who you are, just to be liked and seen in good favor?

When you lose your vulnerability, you risk losing what matters to you the most, and pushing people away that you care about the most.  Is that really worth it?  Do you want to be separated from the things in your life that you cherish just so that you can save face?  This can happen in any situation and it’s something that you have to be cognizant of because if you’re not, you are putting yourself at risk of losing what’s important to you.

Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, and live with no regrets.  Brenè Brown a leading researcher in vulnerability says that vulnerability is our ability to be honest and to be seen.  So be seen, and be yourself!  Share with others how you feel, tell that special someone what’s happening in your life so that they can understand, or explain to those who care that you’re in a difficult place.  Forget about what the right words are, use all that you have to use even if you use too many.  You’re not an ad agency, so your message doesn’t have to be perfect and you’re not paying by the ad space or the letter.  Don’t hold back your true self so that you can save face.  The minute you hold back anything is the minute that you now will probably have a regret in your life, which is that you weren’t your authentic self.