Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Regrets, I've had a few...

Any regrets?

A nephew posed this sudden question while we were chatting about my path through life and how I'm currently getting on and what are my future plans. 

Well, I'm at that age when most folks are looking back more often than forward.  But I'd rather be looking forward than back because I'm now doing the things I really wanted to do in life in spite of the fact that there may be no economic returns whatsoever.  And even if that seems to be the only conventional means of measuring a successful endeavor, it doesn't mean I'm going to stop doing whatever I'm doing.

Looking back is inevitable.  Everyone does that in spite of saying it's pointless to look back when you're trying to move forward.  And if one keeps looking back then he's not moving forward.  And I'd say, 'Haven't you heard of a rear-view mirror?'  Take a glance or two sometimes.  We're not supposed to be looking back all the time.  We only need to find out if we are going in the right direction by knowing where the wrong directions are.

Well, I do have some regrets.  But when I really thought about it, those the were times when I had to make decisions based on the given circumstances.  I believe I wouldn't have done any better if I were to walk down that same path again with those very same conditions.  And I'd lived with what I've chosen.

So, like old blue eyes, the rest of us could still sing that same old song:

'Regrets...I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
I saw it through without exemption...'

Eventually, most of us could still say, 'I did it MY way'....

7 comments:

  1. "But when I really thought about it, those the were times when I had to make decisions based on the given circumstances..."
    I agree, Sha Chek. Once you've chosen your path, you live with it, you fix it if things' gone wrong, you improve it to get better... if you regret and keep looking back, you will crash into something for not concentrating on the way you have chose.

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  2. yeah, like lamp-posts e.g. because we don't have rear-view mirrors when walking hahaha.

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  3. Regret won't benefit us in the now or future but lessons learnt would. I believe that's what experience is about. When you take risks in business, lessons become valuable. Believe me I look back quite a bit to search my mind of a lesson learnt.

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  4. Btw, there's another version of the song you quoted. I think its called "I did it SIDEWAYS."

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  5. hahaha... that's weird. He sounds like a harmonica player.

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  6. is hard not to keep looking back or wishing time machine was real esp. when the past days were good old ones, the present is wrong and seems unfixable and the future is uncertain and you do it all alone :((

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  7. If that's so, I'd time it just to go into the future. I'm not too happy about the past... Besides there's no 'undo' option...

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