I recently did a Google search on something unrelated but turned up a metafilter page in where some apparently wise person entering their 30s asked others who have already lived it what they would have done differently… it was interesting, but brought up a lot of questions for myself.
Nonetheless, it’s a good thing to do… to reflect on your life, identify the mistakes and missed opportunities so that you can move forward better prepared to not relive things. But wiser still is to hear the experiences of others who have already been there so as to avoid their missteps and take another direction—but one that doesn’t discount what’s best for you (what I mean is, beware the slippery slope in heeding anyone else’s advice too seriously since what was not best for them personally might still stand as the best thing you could do for yourself).
For my thirties… I cannot say that there was anything really to regret. That’s because to regret anything would imply that I did something to warrant those bad times.
I was impinged by hard circumstances … It started with my slow but steady climb from out of the depths of a bad economy, however, right when things were becoming significantly improved in this area, I suffered a great loss when someone close to me had passed away…. Meanwhile, I became further entangled with someone who I could have done without. From these events, a lengthy road was already laid out, down which I would traverse for years… and which has seen me through halfway of my thirties to where I am today (as of this writing).
So, there’s nothing to regret per se… none of those things were of my doing. Rather, it’s my responsibility now to not take those things personally—someone passing away, another person being anybody other than the partner I needed them to be in the midst of that (trust me, although I was not perfect, I was a good enough partner)—as bad as all that was, I can’t misconstrue any of it as having to do with me, nor as portending to my future.
But in order that I successfully not take those things to heart and still make a better life for myself, I need to forgive… the events and the people involved, as well as myself. Like Hurricane Rubin Carter once said in describing his ability to not be bitter about his false imprisonment, lasting 25 years, ‘I will not be a co-conspirator to their crime.’ Therefore, I cannot let any of this dim the light as only exists from within me, and from which I could find my way to something better if only I let it shine… but which (as in this case) requires that I recognize that bad things happen irrespective of me.
The point is… sometimes it takes a keen mind to recognize the difference between the mistakes that were of your doing from the bad circumstances that were not. And, for that, sometimes there’s nothing to regret… a lot of times, bad things happen despite of us… and when that’s the case, the only lesson to learn is nothing with the past, so much as how you process it within yourself in the moment. Therefore, to free yourself from the burden of bad happenings that had nothing to do with you personally, you need to be wise enough to see it for what it was in order to not take it personally… from there, you can forgive and not hold yourself back from something better.
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For more on what other people had to say about their 30s, see the metafilter I mentioned above, here: http://ask.metafilter.com/257352/what-do-you-wish-you-did-in-your-thirties