Regrets

"Forget regret, or life is yours to miss."

- Jonathan Larson

"To regret something is to hang yourself with your own noose. Mental suicide."

- Anonymous

"If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world."

- Mercedes Lackey

"I would much rather have regrets about not doing what people said, than regretting not doing what my heart led me to and wondering what life had been like if I'd just been myself"

- Brittany Renee

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”

- Sydney Smith

"I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both."

- Soren Kierkegaard

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Live without regret. Regret is no longer regret if you learned from it. Don’t regret what happened because it could’ve turned out so much worse.

All those sayings are trash. Garbage. Complete and utter bullshit. No doubt good to strive to live by, but impossible to attain. Everyone has regrets, and whether you learned from what happened or not doesn’t affect that it still hangs there, in the back of your mind, that giant “WHAT IF?” Most of you positive, no-regret thinkers are out there right now thinking, “This guy is nuts! I don’t have regrets!” But you do. You’re not admitting it to yourself, but if you look back, maybe start uncovering some long-buried memories, there is something in your past that you regret. And that’s normal. The important thing is what we do with those regrets.

There are people who bury the memories and the context of the regret in order to make it seem like it doesn’t exist and, for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t to them. They don’t think about it. They can live in their fantasy regret-free world. Nothing is wrong with that. No one will diagnose them as psychotic for it, no one will tell them to just live and let live, no one will see anything wrong in the way they live. They will be the perfectly happy, optimistic people they are and go through life in relative bliss. I think I’d even be safe in saying that half or more of the population falls into this category, even with the selfish, need-to-be-perfect society we live in. What I want from these people is for them to know the other side of the story, to know that it’s out there, and to respect the people that have to deal with it.

The other half of the population lets their regrets eat them alive, destroying their mind, emotionally tearing them apart from the inside. “Mental suicide.” For these people, every day is filled with that “What if?” Always second-guessing their actions, not only from the past, but also what they do every day. It’s similar to a bad relationship. Someone gets hurt and from that point on, they are constantly over-cautious about their future relationships in order to try to save themselves the hurt. The vast majority of these people live perfectly normal lives, just like the first group, except instead of being blissfully unaware of their regrets, they are simply able to overcome or push them aside. The minority of people are those who cannot deal with things so simply, ending up with anxiety issues, sometimes to the point of depression.

I’d like to say that, because I’m aware of both groups, I’ve been able to consciously train myself to live and think like the first group. That would be a lie. There are definitely regrets hidden in the depths of my subconscious that I’m not currently aware of and which I hope I never become aware of. But I fit snugly within the second group. I have regrets that I am acutely aware of and which I simply cannot wish away. One of these stays in the forefront of my mind because situations it is associated with come up quite frequently. Another I cannot shake because, for some reason, I still think about the situation, even though it no longer occurs in my life in any way, shape, or form. I have a very strong feeling that my degree choice is going to come back and bite me farther down the road.

I’m not giving anyone excuses for how they are or anything like that. “Woe is me” stuff doesn’t work with me. I’m dealing with it, you can too. I’m no stronger than anyone else out there; your mental and emotional strength is entirely what you make it. My hope is that people will begin to realize that it’s OKAY to have regrets. It’s perfectly natural. You don’t have to hide it or be ashamed. If you don’t want to go into specifics, obviously that’s your right to privacy. I don’t share mine either. But acknowledge they are there. Write them down and face them head on. Some of them, you may realize either aren’t actually regrets or that you can actually do something to fix it. Facing your past will allow you to be more true to yourself, allowing you to understand yourself, why you act and feel and think the way you do. This is an extremely important part in the process of self-definition: facing your fears and regrets head on and coming to terms with them in the most positive way possible.

You can’t live without regrets. It’s not possible. What you CAN do is live your life in the way that makes you happiest, looking back over your shoulder occasionally. When you see something you don’t like, turn around, wave your past self forward, sit down over some coffee (or beer or whatever your drink of choice is) and talk it out. Explain to yourself why you made the decision you did, why you thought that choice would make you happier. Once you’ve done that, get up, turn forward once again, and march on.

01/15/2011
© 2007-2011 Jacob Tauer
This information is not to be used in any form, online or off, without the express permission of the author

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem

Hola!

Sorry for the delay in posting...too tired last night and now is the first time today I've really felt like typing it up.

So...yesterday and today...Friday and Saturday...my last two nights at home for winter break. I received a text from my ride back to school asking if it would be alright if we leave tomorrow night in order to avoid a snow storm Monday, so we're leaving approximately 18 hours early. That means I'll be back at school by late tomorrow night, back to school, bad food, and worse decisions :) Not overly excited (if ya can't tell), but it'll be good to see everyone again and I'm actually kind of excited for one or two of my classes. I'm also anxious to get started on my not-New-Years-related resolutions, which will either last the first two weeks and more or they will not survive.

One such...experiment...I just decided to start a day or two ago. I'm not shaving (facial hair, pervs) for a while. Well, to be more specific, I will only be shaving my neck for a few days. I'll gradually start shaving other areas of my face as they irritate me...my money is either on my upper lip or my lower lip, above my chin (if that makes sense). The goal? There isn't one. Get my parents to complain (they have just under 24 hours to do so) or for someone to make a comment about how nasty I look.

***EDIT*** The facial hair experiment was restarted today as I figured I should be clean-shaven for church and in order to give my mother a proper hug goodbye tonight.

Yesterday was somewhat eventful for me, definitely not in a good way. For one thing, iTunes crashed on me again and erased my entire library. This means that I must go through my entire library of music fixing all the artists, genres, and song titles for the second time in just a few weeks. It may be a small blessing in disguise, however. Before I put everything back into iTunes, I'm going through all my music folders and re-organizing my music so song files will no longer be buried 4 folders deep. Instead, I will have My Music>Music>*artist name*>*song files*, which will hopefully make it much more easy to access and determine what music I do or don't have at any given time. Also makes locating lost iTunes files much easier. Despite this blessing in disguise, I would like to call for everyone who does not currently use iTunes to boycott it. It's not worth the trouble when you can just drag and drop music to a normal mp3 player. I specify people who don't currently use iTunes because I know those iPod users won't give up their iPods just because I had a bad experience.

The second event yesterday was the dreaded bi-annual dentist appointment. No need for details just in case any of you are woozy, but let me say, for not having any cavities and "near-perfectly clean" teeth, there sure was a lot of blood and pain involved.

Speaking of injuries...the injury report: busted up knee; ankle still very tender, but scabbing over; still potentially broken hand; sore, swollen mouth and gums. One thing gets better, something else happens...Geez.

And now...The Main Event...which deserves a post of its own. Coming Soon :)

Thought of the Day: "Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

-J

0-21-21-59

© 2007-2011 Jacob Tauer
This information is not to be used in any form, online or off, without the express permission of the author

All In All, It's Just Another Brick In The Wall

Hey everyone! Long time no see!

Today, absolutely nothing happened so I decided to combine Tuesday and today. So yesterday I realized I have a newly found (but somewhat old) addiction: Excel spreadsheets. I go online, downloading template after template tracking anything you can imagine and I try to make it fit my life situation. If I can, I save the spreadsheet and fill it out thoroughly, if not, I trash it and move on to the next one. I spent FIVE+ HOURS finding and saving spreadsheets yesterday, and another many hours today changing and fixing them. Great time waster, but really, how many budget spreadsheets could I possibly need?!

Speaking of needs, all of my friends used to be women. I had maybe 2-3 female friends to every guy friend throughout most of high school. Recently though, I realized I now spend very little time with women due to friendships that have somewhat disintegrated, which is unfortunate because they are usually who I feel most comfortable with for some reason. So, new task for myself. Get out and meet women. Not necessarily to date or pick up, but just for some friends to hang out with, get back in that comfortable zone again. If a relationship happens to come out of it, awesome!

Now to old relationships: last night, I hung out with a young woman whom I had not seen for well over a year. We do text constantly, although there was about a 6-month hiatus on that too during my last relationship. Most people you would figure it would be awkward to hang out after all that time, at least for the first time or two. Not us. We jumped back into "normalcy" (we're both horribly weird) in a matter of minutes. Go figure.

NEWS: Nothing new to me, but I haven't mentioned it yet...The family and I are going to Disney World this summer! Whoohoo! Warm Weather!!

Injury Update: Ear not as bad, ankle wound re-opened, possible bruised bone in my foot, possible broken hand. I tell ya, living at home is DANGEROUS.

I want everyone to go check out my favorite comic EVER. This link will bring you to the most recent comic, but I suggest going through and reading all 1700 strips. It'll take a while, but the whole story won't make a lot of sense without reading it all. Anyway, HIGHLY entertaining.

One last announcement, I am currently working on a fairly comprehensive autobiography to post for all of you so you can get a better idea of who I am and what I'm like. It could take a while to get up but you can be sure I'm workin' on it.

Thought of the Day comes from a fortune cookie: Think like an acting man. Act like a thinking man.

-Jake

7-18-18-56

© 2007-2011 Jacob Tauer
This information is not to be used in any form, online or off, without the express permission of the author