Feeling regret is a normal human reaction. Every person has most likely felt regret at one point or another in their life. I think it is important for people to pay attention to their feelings and acknowledge when they aren’t feeling their best. Ignoring and pushing feelings and emotions down can be toxic to the mental and physical well being of a person. However, I do think there is a difference between acknowledging regret and living in regret. The definition of regret is, “to feel sad or sorry about (something that you did or did not do)”.
Sometimes it may be difficult to tell if you are living in regret or if you are merely acknowledging a passing feeling. For me personally, I was one of those people living in regret, but I was unaware that I was doing it. As I have stated before, I have always been involved in sports. Since the age of five I have done several different competitive sports. It was always my dream to be a collegiate athlete. However, when I was a senior in high school competing in track and field I had the realization that I would not become a division one athlete. It wasn’t because I didn’t believe in myself, I simply did not have the proper times, it was plain facts. After graduation a good friend of mine let me know that the University I would be attending did not have a serious pole-vaulting program. That meant that I might have the opportunity to walk onto the team. The University was division one, and just like that my dreams were that much closer to reality once again.
I contacted the coach and they allowed me to walk onto the team. I not only pole-vaulted for Temple University, but they also allowed me to run the 200, 4x4, and 60-meter dash in meets. It was honestly a dream come true, I ran and lifted with some of the best collegiate athletes in the country who pushed me to be better than I could’ve ever imagined. Suddenly my dreams of becoming a collegiate athlete started to grow. New dreams began to bloom, like hitting times to work towards a sports scholarship, going pro after college, even the Olympics.
Everything changed in one day, March 9th, 2014 I found out I would be having a son. Of course I was overwhelmed with feelings of excitement and fear but in the back of my mind and heart the feelings of regret lingered. No one wants to admit to feeling regret while carrying a precious life. I would be lying if I said I did not have feelings of regret. I not only had to put my dreams of becoming an art teacher on hold but also all of my athletic dreams. But my life still had to go on and so it did. I gave birth to my son, which was the best day of my life. I went from South Carolina back to Philadelphia and couldn’t shake the feelings of regret. It marked everything I did, when I couldn’t work out or go on a run it hurt that much worse. Everyday I had to face that my dreams were getting further and further away from me.
One day it just hit me that I was living in regret. I was living in the past which was keeping me from fully enjoying and experiencing my present. What really helped me to change my heart and even see what I was doing was to see how much I was missing out on my son’s life. I was not fully enjoying and experiencing my son because I was living in the past and trying to achieve what was not meant for me to achieve at this time.
Sometimes we think that if the thing we regret not happening would have happened we would be happy. If I would’ve gone pro, if I wouldn’t have gotten injured I would have been successful and my life would be better and I would be happy. As human being we are never satisfied. Even if whatever did not happened for you that you regret, actually happened to you, you would still not be happy, I can guarantee you that. Happiness is fleeting and it does not last forever, it comes and goes. The truth is, even if your life were to go exactly the way you planned you would still have regrets. Maybe it would be regretting that you didn’t spend as much time with your family because you were training for your sport. Or maybe you would regret not taking a certain opportunity because of your scenario. We make up in our brains what we think would be the ultimate happiness. And that is the thing, it is in our heads and it is not reality. In reality amazing things happen and bad things happen and there is no perfect scenario. In our minds we are always going to be thinking that something else that isn’t our situation would have been better. We have that thinking because we cannot have it. It has been a pattern of humans to want things that they cannot have. To dream and put what is not ours on a throne and make it out to be the most amazing and perfect outcome. It goes back to the beginning of humanity.
Adam and Eve had perfection. They had paradise, they had a beautiful connection with the creator and they had anything they could possibly want at their fingertips. But that want, the desire to have something that could be better. The regret, if I don’t have this fruit I will be missing out on something amazing. We don’t give our regrets flaws. The truth of the matter is, if our regret came true and actually happened, it would have flaws and it wouldn’t be perfect like we make it out to be. For example I wanted to eventually go pro with track and field. When I am feeling regret in my everyday life I don’t think about all of the hard work and injuries and hours away from my family. I think of success, medals, fame, money, broken records.
Sometimes things that we planned or dreamed to happen don’t happen. We may never know why. The feeling of regret is natural, but something to keep in mind is that rather than letting regret overcome you is to realize that everything that happens in this life is by no mistake. Nothing is a surprise to God and he can work anything, no matter how terrible for your good. In my case if I would have become a professional athlete I may have never married my husband or had my son. Even though we may not understand why things happen and we may even regret and wish for things to be different we don’t see the full picture. Sometimes things happen that aren’t fair that may not make sense but God always has something greater right around the corner.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”.
Romans 8:28
