Regrets
Story Time
When I was a kid(mid-schooler), I wanted to be my school’s Head Boy or at least part of the council member. So, I decided that I will take part in the election. But here’s a thing, I have a mild stage fright that means regardless of how confident I am in person or a small group of people. I can’t speak on stage as confidently as I spoke that in my mind. This could be one of the reasons for me not nominating my name in the election. Currently, I am in class 12th which means that I am eligible for the post of Head Boy. As soon as the academic session started I was waiting patiently(or rather impatiently) for the election to start. But as soon as the election time was getting closer, I started about overthinking about it. At one point, I even thought of not participating because I started fearing that I would lose the election and it would be an embarrassing situation for me. But then, I thought that it’s better that I participate and lose instead of thinking and regretting what if I had participated.
Fast forward few months
I participated in the election, I lost, but honestly, I wasn’t sad that I lost. Instead, I was satisfied with myself that at least I participated and when I would think about this in the next few years I wouldn’t regret that I didn’t participate.
The above small story was just one of the examples of small regrets we all have. When you look at the word, ‘regret’, has much more deep meaning that it looks. Usually, the regrets we have are too small that they go unnoticed. Sometimes, these small regrets gather up and become huge regrets which we are unable to lift.
Regrets: Small And Big
Small Regrets
Some regrets are small and you don’t actually give them much thought. They can cause mild sadness but that isn’t much long-lasting. For eg., you come from office and as you sit on your couch to surf the internet, but you see that your WiFi isn’t connected then you remember that you forgot to pay your WifI bill. This might cause sadness and you might even curse yourself for not paying the bill but it isn’t really a big regret. Because it won’t really matter much in future that you once had forgotten to pay your WiFi bill. It won’t make you sad after 2-3 years that you didn’t pay your bills on time. Any regret that won’t really matter in the future can be counted as small regret.
Big Regrets: Things Get Serious Here
But I don’t want to talk about these petty regrets because, honestly, these regrets will come and go. I want to talk about something really serious. Really painful regrets, that are too hard to overcome, that just can’t be undone, that you would carry as a weight on your shoulders maybe for a lifetime, and, that might even make you sob.
This regret is not telling our feelings to people, specifically, our parents. Telling how much you love them. When we were kids, things were so easy that we could easily tell them how much we love them. But as we start to grow older, we get more and more alienated from them. We stop telling them about our feeling. This is mostly because we think about what would they say and how they would react. We start living in a world of our own. The world where they don’t play a major role, sadly, and sometimes act like the antagonist, to be more precise seem like the antagonist. We get irritated when they try to enter our world. This is usually when we are young(usually less than 30 years) when we are pumped up with adrenaline.
Nothing Is Constant In This World
Just like everything in this whole universe, this thing also changes. This change occurs when we gain proper senses when we gain maturity and start taking some real responsibilities. We then start to realize how terribly wrong we were. We start including them in our world. We talk to them about things like work and all. But you know what, it is still hard to tell them our feeling and tell them we love them. I find it amusing how easy it is for us to say “I love you” to our GF/BF, especially, when we are in a new relationship. We even say(send while chatting) them out of blue without hesitation. I am not against that though, it’s really important to share our feelings with our loved ones but we miss sharing with ones who deserve to know the most, our parents.
I took the help of my friend1 and posted a story asking people when was the last time they told their parents that they love them. Most of the replies were “don’t know” or “can’t remember”. There were one or two replies that said recently and I was happy by their response.
Realization
The time when we have attained enough senses and tell them about our feelings is when its too late. So late that we can’t tell them. So late that we have lost them forever and they can’t come back to us even if they wanted to. That’s when we think about them. We think about how we should have told them. All the memories of the times we didn’t tell that something we wanted to, all the times we hurt them, all the times we chose something other than them, all the times we talked back and argued on small and silly things, all the times we laughed along them, all the time they did something to make us happy, all the times we had the fun of our lives with them, and God knows what else. But now you just can’t tell them about this. These are the things you don’t want to take to your death bed. Because when you would be old and about to die, you would like to think about all the happy memories instead of thinking about regrets. Regretting how you could have expressed your feelings but you didn’t.
If you love somebody
Better tell them while they’re here
’cause they just may run away from you
You’ll never know quite when, well
Then again it just depends on
How long of time is left for you
-“On The Top Of The World”, Imagine Dragons2
When I would be old, I would prefer thinking about “why did I do it” instead of regret not trying it. If you think about, some things are not that hard to do. You just need to gather courage and initiate it. Remove the hesitation and go for it. Because you don’t know what waits for you on the other side of the decision. Your single decision can change your entire perspective towards a thing. You want to tell your parents how much you love them? Go and tell them. Want to tell your friends how important they are for you and they mean to you? Just do it. See a roller coaster ride at an amusement park and are afraid to take? Try it at least once overcoming the fear. Have a crush? Tell him about you feel. You never know what happens next in life. Maybe you won’t ever get a chance again to tell them about it. So, don’t miss the chance to do it. Because these things are too heart wrenching to bear.
- That_Meme_Lordess
- Imagine dragons- On The Top Of The world
Surreal Blogs
Regrets
Story Time
Regrets: Small And Big
Small Regrets
Big Regrets: Things Get Serious Here
This regret is not telling our feelings to people, specifically, our parents. Telling how much you love them. When we were kids, things were so easy that we could easily tell them how much we love them. But as we start to grow older, we get more and more alienated from them. We stop telling them about our feeling. This is mostly because we think about what would they say and how they would react. We start living in a world of our own. The world where they don’t play a major role, sadly, and sometimes act like the antagonist, to be more precise seem like the antagonist. We get irritated when they try to enter our world. This is usually when we are young(usually less than 30 years) when we are pumped up with adrenaline.
Nothing Is Constant In This World
I took the help of my friend1 and posted a story asking people when was the last time they told their parents that they love them. Most of the replies were “don’t know” or “can’t remember”. There were one or two replies that said recently and I was happy by their response.
Realization
Footnotes
Surreal Blogs