How many times you caught yourself saying: “Damn! I wish I said that or didn’t say that. Or I wish I did that or didn’t do that.” … “I wish I figured this out sooner, I wish I walked away earlier, I wish I knew what I know now ages ago, I wish I could go back and change things, If only I was that person back then … Etc.” but you didn’t know, and you weren’t that person and no you can’t go back. That’s just the way it is. 

Many statements we make each day saying things like these and feeling regret from within. It’s when we had already learned the lesson we were meant to learn that we find ourselves in the blaming game. But why do we blame ourselves for not knowing any better? Why are we so hard on ourselves? Isn’t that the way of life?

You go through your journey, you make your choices along the way, you live life the way you feel at the time, some will be good choices, some bad. And eventually you learn from the bad ones. So why do we tend to have higher expectations of ourselves? How could we have known if we never tried things out? How could we have understood what works and what doesn’t.  Isn’t that the purpose of our lives anyway. To live it. Whichever way. And to learn from our mistakes. So why regret? Why blame?  This is the way it was supposed to be anyway. Isn’t it?!

Perhaps it is in our nature to be hard on ourselves when we realize our mistakes. We discover we were being silly at times. We confront ourselves with our faults and they seem so big in our eyes, but to others you may just be normal. Some learn their lessons from the first try. Some have to repeat their mistakes to finally get it. And some unfortunately never learn; they are stuck on repeat mode.

At times we are blinded to certain traits or characteristics we are born with, that hinder us from evolving. Other times, we are just not ready to learn that lesson that would shape us eventually to the person we are meant to be. So we take longer in the learning process. Our journey may end up more painful and more complicated. It feels as if you are being picked out from all the people to suffer. We don’t realize at the time, this may be our blessing in disguise. We never see the good in our sufferings and loses. We only see it as such because we are emotional beings. It’s only later on when we grasp the true lesson and that’s when things become clear as water. And finally we accept our sufferings, in fact, we embrace it. At last, the blind fold is off. We see the big picture and we understand why we had to go through what we went through; however long. It was all meant to be to bring us to this point here today.

Nothing happened by accident, the good things and the bad. It was all part of the learning curve. So no need to blame ourselves for not knowing better, we weren’t supposed to. And no need to regret what is in the past, it is meant to stay there; in the past. Look forward and learn from your mistakes. Value the lessons you learned because not everyone was blessed enough to learn them like you did. Take it easy on yourself. You are where you are supposed to be. Period.