No regrets?

“I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, but I don’t regret anything.”

I heard someone say that on the tv last night. I was multitasking at the time, so I don’t know the show, but the quote really made me think.

At first, I thought it was just some ridiculous thing that only a tv character would say. How can we not regret something if we’re not proud of it? Aren’t those just different ways of saying the same thing?

Well, maybe in my life, they are. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, and it doesn’t much matter that I was forced to do them, or that I was being abused myself in the process, or that I had no freedom to choose to do otherwise. I still regret every single one of them.

And was it my shame, or shame of their own produced by years of criticism and unrealistic expectations and the constant feeling of pervasive failure, that created regret in the “front world” people? Wherever it came from, they have it. They are never proud of anything they do. The closest feeling to pride that they, or any of us, are able to experience is relief that we didn’t fail.

Everything less than perfection is failure. And every failure is a badge of shame, which we regret.

But then again, just because the quote has never been true for me, that doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be true at all.

It occurred to me as I was thinking about it that maybe the regret over the things I’m not proud of comes from lack of acceptance. I don’t want to accept that I did what I did under any circumstances. I don’t want to accept the consequences, or admit the consequences, or even think about the consequences – and I don’t mean the consequences that fell on me (which I believe I deserve), I mean the consequences that rippled out from my actions to affect one, or ten, or fifty other people in a negative way. Sometimes being forced doesn’t feel like an excuse, and acceptance feels impossible.

But – if a person could find acceptance – if they could accept a choice as being the best they could do at the time, even though in retrospect it might not have been the best choice ever – or if they could accept a reality for what it was, even though it was terrible and they did terrible things in that context – if they didn’t chastise themselves for eternity because they didn’t see the consequences ahead of time or because they existed in a reality that sucked – if they accepted all the consequences of the choices they made (good and bad) or the reality that was imposed on them instead of spending eternity dodging the consequences, or feeling victimized by them, or trying to make them someone else’s fault or someone else’s problem, or doing anything to avoid owning them – if a person could own and accept all the different aspects – then maybe they could make peace with themselves for whatever it was, even though they aren’t proud of it – and then maybe they would be able to look back on it and honestly say that, although they are not proud of it, they don’t regret it.

Maybe if a person can accept why they are not proud of something, then there is nothing left to regret.

Or at least, maybe that works some of the time. Somehow it doesn’t seem realistic to imagine that any human being (outside of tv land) could get through life with no regrets at all. But it might be true that acknowledging and accepting all sides of a choice, whether it makes us look good or not, whether we like it or not, whether we’re ultimately proud of ourselves for doing it or not – acceptance might mean laying some regrets to rest, which would mean that we end up with a lighter weight of regrets to carry with us through life, and a lighter load of baggage trailing behind us.

And when I think about all the things that would ultimately be different if our baggage were less, if our regrets were fewer, if our shame was less smothering – if we could genuinely accept, and therefore let go of, the things that are long past changing no matter how much we regret them – that could very well change everything. The basic mental structures that govern our every thought and choice and reaction would have to change in response to that kind of acceptance.

It sounds simultaneously too simple and too overwhelming.

But I think there is a kind of emotional alchemy that is sometimes brought about by genuine acceptance of the actual truth.

Acceptance is the necessary first step to a lot of other equally profound changes, the key without which doors remain locked and progress remains blocked. Maybe acceptance is also the first step to fewer regrets and a life of greater peace with myself and my history.

Just a random Friday thought.