Looking back

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Paul James

New Member
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Hayesville,N.C.
:confused:Have you ever looked back and thought I could have done this or that, but didn't? Why does it take us a lifetime to see what we could have done to have a better life and happier one, but including the bad circumstances? Were the bad circumstances, just accidents are true occurrences's? It is said that our life is created for us biblically. Thoughts? Paul
 

Paul James said:
:confused:Have you ever looked back and thought I could have done this or that, but didn't? Why does it take us a lifetime to see what we could have done to have a better life and happier one, but including the bad circumstances? Were the bad circumstances, just accidents are true occurrences's? It is said that our life is created for us biblically. Thoughts? Paul
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I prefer to look forward while learning from my mistakes from the past, so I won't make the same poor choices again in the future. I don't believe we are pre destined to be unhappy or to fail. I think life is what we make it.
 
Paul, I think this is the best thread you've started so far.

I don't accept the premise that our "life is created for us biblically". A lot of things outside our control happen to us and then our own actions and intentions affect our lives. In retrospect some of our decisions turn out well while many others do not. We would do well to learn from our mistakes and try not to make them again in the future.
 

Right away I can think of how I should have stayed in college and got a good degree. Back then, I wasn't much of a "schooling/learning" type person, but as time went on, I got older and finally decided the type of career/job I wanted, it was just too late to go back and get that degree. Besides "being too late" and "being older", the finances were just not there to get that degree I wanted. But, If I would have got that degree, my life would definitely had been better due to getting a much higher salary.

Yes, the thoughts of "if I would've just done this or that, my life would've been much better" cross my mind all too often. One thing I do feel very fortunate in doing was meeting my wife. It took long enough to meet "Mrs. Right", but I finally did.
 
chic said:
I prefer to look forward while learning from my mistakes from the past, so I won't make the same poor choices again in the future. I don't believe we are pre destined to be unhappy or to fail. I think life is what we make it.
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The same here, chic, it took me awhile to get to this point in my life though, in my younger days I was a big worrier about mistakes I had made...always what if this or that, now I just go with the flow and as you say, 'look to the future'.
 
I try not to think back about all the bad decisions I made as it would just serve to make me depressed all the time. As for the bible, to me it's a book of mythology, nothing more.

I try to think of the present moment. Difficult, but I try.
 
I made mistakes and sure there's thing I could have made better decisions about, but all in all I am pleased with how it worked out, SO FAR....
 
It took me a long time to realize that the mistakes I made were as a result of not having the sufficient life tools to make better decisions at the time. Certainly I would do better having the insight and knowledge I now possess... but that is the same as saying "hindsight is 20/20" I think we all try to do what is best, but we are not all equipped to be able to. Too bad.. Youth is wasted on the young.
 
I sure would have changed many things. My hope is the years ahead I can make good. I always worry about those plans though......

I can also relate to QuickSilver's post. As a young adult I wasn't well prepared for the world. Between a mother with severe emotional problems and the bullies I endured, it's a wonder I functioned at all.
 
....of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: "It might have been!" (with gracious thanks to Mr. Whittier.)

I dunno. Sometimes I think I should have turned left instead of right, not done one thing instead of another, whatever, but all in all my life seems to have been the way I thought it would be. I (usually) learned from my mistakes and was (usually) glad for my choices.

This is one of those tree-falling-in-the-wilderness/one-hand-clapping questions!
 
I grew up in Hershey, PA, which is also home to the Pennsylvania State Police Academy. When I was 14 y/o and riding in the car with my dad, I told him that someday I will be going through the academy while pointing to it where it sat on top of a hill. He asked me if I was serious. I told him that is what I wanted to be when I was finished with college. He told me that only the best get in. I graduated high school and did my stint in the Marines and then went to the local community college to get an associate's degree in criminal justice while also working at Sears changing tires and doing oil changes. After I applied at the State Police, I continued to work at Sears for another 5 months and finally I got the call to come in for an interview. Three months later, I was in the academy.

I have no regrets.
 
It is said often that people regret the things they did not do more than the things they did.

It is true for me very much. We tend to assume wrongly that the choice not taken would have been better than the one we took. But that is speculation, perhaps untrue.
 
No regrets....you get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories...
Almostahundred.jpg
I am almost a hundred years old; waiting for the end, and thinking about the beginning.
There are things I need to tell you, but would you listen if I told you how quickly time passes?
I know you are unable to imagine this.
Nevertheless, I can tell you that you will awake someday to find that your life has rushed by at a speed at once impossible and cruel. The most intense moments will seem to have occurred only yesterday and nothing will have erased the pain and pleasure, the impossible intensity of love and its dog-leaping happiness, the bleak blackness of passions unrequited, or unexpressed, or unresolved.
You get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories...

Photography: Ania Powalowska

(Meg Rosoff/Garrison Keillor`s quotes)
 

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