| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 9:04:51 AM | If you could somehow change one thing you've said, done or didn't
say or do in a past relationship, what would that ONE thing be?
Maybe it was not even a past relationship, maybe it was a party
or a social event where you failed to say "hi" to a person you found attractive?
In retrospect, I believe we all have one thing we might change if
"Rewind" were possible. What's yours? | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 9:07:18 AM | | None of it, I would have missed the lesson in the mistake.... No regrets, no resentment... | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 9:17:24 AM | this is the problem with society; "everything happens for a reason", "I have no regrets". how arrogant and self absorbed. Pretty much saying I never made mistakes; it was supposed to be that way and I had no choice. lol
We all have regrets; I'm not going to tell you specifically because they are private and I dont know you; if you think things happen for a reason and you have no regrets then you dont realize or admit you screwed up, which makes it impossible to learn from it.
The key to life is when you make a mistake, you are adult enough to say I blew it, say you are sorry, try to fix it, and never do the same mistake twice. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 9:19:29 AM | Agreed!!!
<div class="quote">No regrets, no resentment
Mark:
There's a difference between accepting mistakes. and wanting to go "back" to change them. Going forward with new knowledge, without regret is how I choose to evolve. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 9:22:11 AM | What if we picked the wrong lesson to miss or the wrong thing to change? Would our lives be guaranteed to be better or would they potentially be catastrophically worse?
Agree with all previous posts. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 9:28:08 AM | NOTHING at all. That would also change who you are today...I love me today : )
Live today, say and do all things you want to-No regrets baby!!! | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 9:32:23 AM | | I wouldn't have slept with his younger brother. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 9:33:09 AM | No one has regrets about not saying "Hello" to that person
who left the social event before you had the chance to speak? | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 9:42:20 AM | Yeah, well there was the time I slapped the crippled guy in a wheel chair in the back of the head. But, hey, we knew each other and there was bad blood and he tried to run me over in his electric wheelchair.
I knew him from the care home where I was a security guard. Always lighting his smokes and joints and he was a pest. And then a directive came down "no more lighting anything!"
Then he got mean. Then I started dancing around. "Look at these fine legs! Legs that WORK!"
After I b1tch slapped him the cops came. Even THEY didn't like him. So they just told me to stay away from him.
If I could rewind...I think I would have slapped him harder. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 9:47:19 AM | I agree that who I am is the sum total of the experiences I've had, the things I've learned and how I've processed all of it to make sense of me and the world. Some of my worst experiences have brought me the greatest growth. Some of my biggest mistakes led me to places that success would have missed. Viewed from that lens how could I regret those experiences. Perhaps I could regret I didn't learn the lesson earlier, or needed so many of them repeated before I got it, lol. But then I'd be missing this moment, and would need to rewind in order to fully experience it.
Regrets... yes, I have some regrets. Most of them involve my failure to be kind or compassionate in the moment. Or my failing to understand what was up for someone else and I lost that opportunity with them.
If we could rewind... I'd like to rewind to the date who exposed his penis in all its' glory to me, sitting back with a look of "isn't it awesome?' on his face. I was speechless at the time, but have thought of LOTS of witty things I ought to have said. Yeah, I'd like to rewind that moment.
If we could rewind... there are times when I was too busy/distracted/occupied to pay full attention to my daughter. Hell, there are lots of those moments with her and other people too. I'd like to rewind those moments and give them my full attention. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 9:54:59 AM | I am with mthomjmark on this one.
I've done a few things in my life that looking back there is NO lesson or REASON that would fully explain my actions. Given the opportunity, there would be a different route for sure. I would still be me because all I would avoid would be dumb/useless mistakes.
Perhaps a part of being an adult, is to have the guts to acknowledge screw-ups! | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 10:01:05 AM |
No one has regrets about not saying "Hello" to that person
who left the social event before you had the chance to speak?
I don't. But if it's a pattern for somebody, if the one that got away becomes every one gets away, then that person should probably look at his shyness, or social style, or whatever. And if he regrets it--like if he beats himself up about it and stuff--then he should look into his self image, etc. Either way, it's a matter of using the experience, not just wallowing in it after. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 10:01:58 AM | Seeing the lessons in life doesnt mean walking through and away when things go bad, or end on their own . Its about taking what you've learned and applying it to your life in every situation, its called gaining wisdom, and knowing what to do with it. if you dig deep enough past the surface of your own face you'll see a lesson in everything that happens to you. These things happen to shape you, if you walk away without learning something.. well ... enlightenment is further than you have ever imagined it could be...
Live not in the past, but review it for your future as a better human being... | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 10:11:46 AM | There is a time that I regret not being forceful enough to
grab a good friends keys to her car after she had one too many.
She got home OK, but I'm not sure she's a better person for it? | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 10:16:17 AM | See, the thing is, you can "rewind" and change a decision -- but you dont know what the outcome would be.
Maybe the outcome would be that you make a bigger mistake down the line because you didn't learn what you needed to learn.
There are things that I feel bad about, but I'd be scared to change them because if I didn't have the experience of feeling bad about them, when nothing disastrous resulted, maybe I'd have got myself into a right mess by now.
If you're happy with where you are, it's kind of hard to regret anything that was part of the path to bring you here. Sometimes I am curious and wonder how different things could have been. Sometimes I wish it were possible to know. I am very happy in my life now, but I am still curious. What if I'd had more encouragement when I was at school, what if I'd known then what I know now? I know it's normal that you don't get a grip on things until your mid 20's but everything was so intense and so confusing and I wonder what I might have done if I'd had the grown-up brain I have now. Of course you don't ge to have the grown up brain without going through the growing up process... but why does it take so long?!
I regret the choices I've made that have resulted in others suffering or even being put at risk. One of the biggest things, stupid as it sounds, was realising how much danger I'd put a pet in, when I realised the bloke I thought I was in love with was capable of hurting the creature to get to me. I think that as human beings we all have such imperfect knowledge of what goes on around us. I am someone who worries and thinks probably far too much and I know that it is always possible to overlook a consequence or a possibility. But I try really hard, and always have, to make the best choice and because of this, I can't regret too much -- I know I cannot expect more of myself and that I will always make mistakes.
I will always feel that if I was a bit smarter or a bit better, I would do better and sometimes it upsets me because I want to do better and I wish I was wiser. I don't doubt that when I am 50 I may be looking back and thinking how dumb I was and even now I get frustrated with myself for the things I miss. But that is just how life works and I think one can't ask more of anyone than to have the intention and to make the effort to do their best and to know that any human "best" will always fall short of perfection but that that is exactly as it should be, being as we aren't meant to be either robots or gods. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 10:16:51 AM | I wouldn't have slept with my best friends love interest in high school. The lesson I learned is that friendships are more important then boys. Today, I don't date anyone my friends have dated/slept with because of my lesson learned then.
I think we all have regrets about things we have done in our pasts but if we didn't have those experiences then how would we know not to do them again. Life lessons learned are how we grow as human beings.  | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 10:18:11 AM | Regrets.
One time I placed a bottle of good Garnacha in the refrigerator, since it was in the hot car coming home. I regret that miserably. Good red wine should never be refrigerated, not even for 5 minutes. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 10:37:33 AM | | I would not have wasted so much time on the wrong ones! That's my biggest regret. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 10:39:39 AM | I would rewind to a certain point in my marriage and left sooner. My self esteem would be more intact if I had called his bluff when he said "I'm done with you", but threatened to take the kids from me if I left. But we were living on an island, outside the US, with three kids, I felt needed at my job, plus I had no where to go. He knew he didn't want the responsibility of the kids, but he didn't want them to leave the island with me, if I left, so he told me he would follow me and take the kids because he earned more and would hire better lawyers to win custody. It took me ten months to figure out a plan to leave, and I felt like a hostage and a slave. It took another six months to get jurisdiction in Arizona to file for divorce and feel safe.
I wish I could have figured it how to call his bluff sooner, because I think the prolonged stress may have permanently damaged my nervous system. It's been almost two years since I left and over a year since I've been divorced and officially "safe" from emotional abuse. I still cannot speak about almost anything in my personal history without breaking out in a rash, because my body cannot distinguish the difference between a past and present threat if something triggers a past memory, so I have an adrenaline response. At this point I honestly think I might have PTSD, and I wonder if it's permanent. I'm safe, I'm raising my kids, I'm in a healthy relationship, I am valued at my job, I've gone to hours of counseling. I can't believe that after this much time, I'm still breaking out in visable red spots when I have to talk about myself--not even about the divorce or the island--when I talk about ANYTHING that might trigger follow-up questions that I don't want to answer.
If I could rewind, I would have packed my bags, pulled out the credit card and caught the next plane, with the kids, and told everyone that my husband was "done with me", and I was only on that island for him. I would have gone to family or even a shelter in the US and gotten help for legal issues. I was too afraid of failing and losing my kids. My advice to anyone in an emotionally abusive and threatening relationship is to get help, get out, because I think the prolonged stress can permanently damage your nervous system. I tell myself not to despair, maybe I just need more time to heal, but I don't know. Guess I can only keep going to counseling and try to build up those emotional walls so I don't feel so vulnerable. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 11:20:34 AM | OK, so a more realistic answer is that I think our regrets our basically transitory and here's why. We think, if I could turn the clock back, I would do this differently. But it is like those movies that dabble with time travel, that one tiny change can send ripples that can be huge, think It's a Wonderful Life and how many people's lives are altered merely by one man not being there to pull his brother out of the frozen water.
I know there have been things that at the time I probably spent a good bit of time regretting, truly wishing I could turn back the clock and not do or say whatever. The fact that nothing jumped into the front of my mind when I first considered the topic of the thread suggests that by and large, I don't have any huge regrets.
I could easily regret my marriage, or wish I had married someone else, but I wouldn't have my kids so that is a no brainer. I would obviously wish that my kids had a kind attentive father but that would also change who they are and I kind of like them.
I always feel like if the thing you are regretting was meant to be it would have happened one way or another, so the person you regret not saying hello to, had the opportunity to say hello to you, so if you were supposed to hook up, another opportunity will arise. I think it is much more productive to think about what you do today so you don't have regrets tomorrow. As Rune, Margo and others have noted, what we usually regret is failing to think more of others or to really treat them with compassion or how you would wish to be treated. Avoiding additional moments like those I think is more productive than remembering those moments you have already blown beyond the nuggets of wisdom they contain. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 11:29:34 AM | lmao at bodypro!!! omg
If I could rewind...I think I would have slapped him harder. 
If I could rewind, redo, undo 'Anything'? .. yeah .. there are 1 or 2 things I "Might" alter .. but I'm Not tellin you!  | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 11:30:33 AM | @arizonabeth
Glad your doing well. Godspeed with your healing! | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 11:33:23 AM | | I would change dating a man who beat & molested my children while I was at work. I would change my frustrations at not having a man and pay more loving attention to my children, so that I would never had dated a man who could do such things. All the things I would change have to do with my children, you can't take it back once it's done, there is nothing, not one person, who is more important than one's children, it was my job to teach them and protect them, and I failed. What he did, what he was, that was all about him, but I was their mother, I should have been paying better attention, that was my job as a parent. I would give up my life to be able to go back and change what happened to them. | |
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| If we could Rewind?
Posted: 4/11/2009 11:58:14 AM | I would like to rewind and change my non-winning lottery ticket.  | |
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