The cold feeling of burning remorse. The desire to change what was said and/or done. The absolute need to move on. In my own words, I call this Regret.
I find myself victim of Regret more times than I can number, yet, most times, I find myself unable to escape. Quite often, my Regret over my own actions drives me to the limits of my conscience; I’m forced to think over something else, or at least try to. For myself, regret is the feeling of wanting to change one’s own actions, and it is due to the impossibility of satisfying such a feeling that Regret remains prevalent within my thoughts. The only way out is acceptance.
Regret seems to become quite dominant within the Life of an individual, as the individual ages. Based on my conversations with people of older age (mostly senior citizens), regret is what causes them most discomfort in their otherwise-joyful lives. Regret of one’s own inaction seems to be most prevalent. While to me, their regretful feelings may seem to have less of an impact than the other individual feels them to be, but to them, it’s really opportunities for growth that they missed; they’re now tormented lamenting over their inaction every time they suffer a reminder of it. Hearing all this sadness, I tried to conjure a purpose for Regret in the Life of an individual. Is it to garner greater confidence in one’s own actions? To allow for empathy between individuals? I obsessively searched, through novels that I had read, articles written by experts, yet nothing was leading me to a proper, acceptable answer. It was at this time that I came to a very simplistic conclusion: regret is ingrained into Life.
The unforgiving pain of agonizing failure. The desire to regain control. The need to accept failure. In my own words, I call this Imperfection.
I have a constant desire to always remain in control of myself- preparing work ahead of time (which I obviously failed to do with this blog post), always trying to maintain a composed nature. Unfortunately for me, reality has a tendency to remain completely outside the expectations of individual thought. For me, there’s a necessity to know everything happening in my life, so that I might perfectly accomplish the required tasks. Everything will seem to be orderly in my head; it is not the same with reality. Doubt will rise. Uncertainty will rule. Hesitation in my actions will cause my planning to submit to anarchy. At that point, everything falls. I will lose my composure, being left unable to even accomplish a single task of what I had earlier planned on doing. My jumbled thoughts will race, wondering where I made a mistake, and how I could have ever resulted with such an Imperfection in my organized structure. Once again, acceptance is deemed to be the only route to escape this feeling.
From what I’ve observed, some people have a strong need for organized structure in their life; organized structure delivers the promise of success. It is planned, meticulously calculated, and arranged perfectly, so as to achieve the goal the individual may have in mind. When these plans go awry (usually due to the intervention of unpredictable events), the individual, who had become dependent on those structures, crumbles along with them. The involved individuals (which, in most of my observations, are usually either students or teachers) acknowledge their fall as an Imperfection within themselves. Imperfection seems to be deeply rooted within humanity: to be human, is to harbor Imperfection. However, Imperfection seems to have very few roles in the Life of the individual,other than causing failure. It allows one to establish connection with another, at the cost of having to face adversity. Perhaps Life may be better without Imperfection; a world where the best laid plans of mice and men would NOT go astray. A place like this, however, will only ever exist in wild imaginations of humanity, for Imperfection is directly tied with an individual throughout their existence: such is Life.
Imperfection plagues the young, while Regret torments the aging. Most of the people of the older generation have already come to accept themselves for their own imperfections, while the bulk of individuals in the younger generation have not lived long enough to hold strong regret. What a conflict that Life holds for living organisms! Acceptance of defeat to the conflicts that Life presents to the individual appears to be the only way to free oneself from the curse of Regret and Imperfection; it is within this acceptance of defeat that one may elude these sorrowful feelings, and thereby, attain victory. Life is truly quite ironic in this sense, in that the acceptance of defeat will lead to the achievement of victory, in which victory would be defined as fulfillment of one’s own Life. Acceptance is not simple. Life is unpredictable. It leads you down roads where you thought you’d have never gone down, only to once again embark through a series of twists and turns; successes and failures occur constantly within the Life of an individual. The individual, being a living organism, seems to never be truly prepared for what Life will throw next. Will it be adversity? Will it be achievement? The individual is caught up in the beautiful flow of Life, the ways in which they are able to adapt, to grow beyond their own past self. Within the chaos that is Life, there is magnificence; simple existence is a joy that’s often looked over quite often. Despite all the challenge, adversity, Regret, and Imperfection that Life has to offer, there’s much greater love and happiness in the world! For some, it is easy to find, while for others, it proves to be their most challenging task: such is Life.
The daunting conflicts which only bolster the unpredictability. The desire for unrestrained happiness. The need to achieve acceptance. In my own heart, this is what I believe to be Life.
Citations:
“Regret:The Useless Emotion By Ali”. Thinglink.com. Web. 18 Nov. 2016.
Hernandez, Alfredo. “The Beauty Of Life & People – Community – Google+”. Plus.google.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.
“C’est La Vie Arts”. C’est La Vie Arts. N.p., 1992. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.
Rehman –
Something that immediately jumped out at me while I was reading this was your use of capitalization in this piece. You appeared to be directly talking to your emotions, as though they were fragments of your personality that needed to be reasoned with. Life, Imperfection, Regret… These actual beings that come together, with infinite more like them, compressed into a prism and shone out into the world as one powerful and direct light. This piece is the prism, and you, Rehman, are the light.
I really do agree that people spend their lives searching for acceptance in their life. As you put it: “Imperfection plagues the young, while Regret torments the aging”. When you are young, you live with bursts of passion, one leading to the next, these bursts are something one can not control, and often are what show the imperfections within us. Come later age, those bursts of passion have become a lesser, but continuous stream of your passions. This leaves plenty of room for regret, wishing and thinking about what could have been, trying to figure out the world around them and where they fit, only to realize that they could have been so much more.
What really warmed my heart, after you talked about harsh realities, was your way of recognizing that while these hardships do exist in life, there is also boundless amounts of love and happiness that flow, interwoven with the sadness that sometimes can come to the surface, but largely stay beneath.
…After spending another ten minutes reading over your piece, I still can not find anything large I’d suggest working on. I’m going to Regret saying that after I lose marks for not providing ways for you to improve!!
But after all: Such is life.
~Areeb
Dearest Rehman,
This piece was absoloutley fabulous! Your constant definition and elaboration on the ideas of regret and imperfection is profound! Much like Areeb said, your use of capitalization was evidently intentional and was certainly to the benefit of the piece. I almost felt that Regret and Imperfection were no longer simply concepts but things that were tangible, that I could reach out and touch if I so dared! Through out your piece I was left in awe time and time again at just how wise your words were. “Regret of one’s own inaction seems to be most prevalent,” was one of my favourite lines as it really put things into perspective for me – regret isn’t limited to the mistakes that are made, but the decisions that are failed to be made. This wasn’t necessarily a new idea, but rather a much needed reminder to live life to the fullest.
If I could change anything, I would recommend that you are watchful of your term choice. There was a back and forth between personal pronouns and the metaphorical individual which made it hard for me to comprehend the piece at times.
All-in-all, this piece is great! It was extraordinary being able to see life from your perspective, which is one people truly need to reflect from more frequently. Your wise words have gotten me thinking about my decisions and how i choose to lead my life, for that I thank you.
Kindest regards,
Ibukun
P.S. C’est La Vie is a great title.