How many of you have found yourself day dreaming, wishing you had done something differently? I wish I would have taught my kids this. I wish I would have chosen a different life path. I wish I would have saved more money. I wish I wouldn’t have wasted so much time doing this or that…and instead done X-Y-Z.
We all have times when we mull and lament over the mistakes we have made and things we wish we would have done differently. We have REGRETS and regrets are the REAL deal, ladies and gentleman. Maybe if I had done such and such this wouldn’t have happened. I wish I would have said this. I wish I would have said that. Maybe, just maybe, I could have changed my son or daughter’s path if…
But the reality is….PERFECT PARENTS, PERFECT PEOPLE, and PERFECT LIVES do not exist. We all, (if we are to be honest), have made our share of mistakes. And…News Flash: There are others around the corner just waiting to be made! Some of us have made more mistakes than others, but the fact remains, we have all hiked MISTAKE MOUNTAIN and we have the bumps, bruises and heartache to prove it.
I’d like to elaborate on parenting, because this seems to be an area of MISTAKE MAKING that cause people to live in the most regret. Most parents have their children’s BEST INTEREST in mind when they are raising them. They read tens of thousands of books on parenting. They attend parenting classes. They follow everything taught, and still they come up short. They dream for their children’s futures. They want their futures to be happy and bright. They want them to make the right choices, and be successful in all of life’s endeavors.
Sometimes they are. Sometimes they’re not. Other times they are works in progress and success is just around the corner.
In the midst of the whole shebang, some parents are so given and driven by a desire to do things perfectly, they live in fear of making a mistake. But that drivenness to be perfect doesn’t keep them from the inevitable…CLIMBING MISTAKE MOUNTAIN.
No matter what your story or what kind of mistakes you’ve made, living under a blanket of guilt and shame as a result of these, is stifling, paralyzing, and in short, STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN.
There’s no greater JOY stealer than living in the Should’ve–Could’ve–Would’ve’s. Living under that blanket of guilt, whatever it stems from, sucks the life out of us in one skinny minute. We can’t back up and do things differently. It simply IS WHAT IT IS. And we have to live with the choices we have made, mistakes and all.
Maybe it’s time to FORGIVE ourselves for our short comings. It’s not easy, but we MUST for the sake of our own sanity and for the peace we so desperately need.
Let’s make peace once and for all with the SHOULD’VE–COULD’VE–WOULD’VE’S. Get out your lens labeled “A BETTER PERSPECTIVE,” flip off that blanket of guilt and shame, and open our arms wide to begin to HOPE AGAIN!
JOY and PEACE is just waiting to flood your soul. Will you open wide the door when it comes knocking?
Boy if this isn’t the truth! I can relate to a lot of what you wrote here. Well done!!