As of late, I have been viewing movies that have a "no regrets" moral to the story. These stories are usually told by women upon reflection of their lives, how they lived and what they have learned. Evening and La Vie en Rose are two movies I watched centering around this theme. Each story was told very differently, but spoken from a woman's perspective of her life and her choices as she looks back.
As I watched these films I begin to ask myself the question, "What if there are no mistakes? What if there are no regrets? What if life is a series of choices, and from those choices we make our life, the good and the bad?" I suppose it makes sense if you really think about it, and maybe for most this is already a realization, but for me I had never thought about my life this way before. I had always seen my life in two columns, the good/right column and the bad/wrong column, and the idea of a "successful" life was to have more x's in the good/right column than the bad/wrong one. I laugh as I read my own words, as if life is some how that simple. I apparently concluded that making right choices doesn't require learning anything along the way.
I have learned after these 36 years, that there are no "right" choices. Now I am not saying that there aren't consequences for our choices and actions. Of course there are, but as I look back on my life lived so far, I see just choices, none that were wrong and none that were perfectly right. Even the hardest decisions, the ones I worried over, lost sleep over, never ended up being wrong choices, just simple decisions that I learned from. Maybe you have to live a certain amount of life before you come to that realization. I guess I did. I look back now and almost get frustrated at myself for worrying about doing the "right" thing....such a waste. I struggle now even to change my way of thinking, to just go with my gut and not worry about the outcome. Watching these movies, and others with the same moral, made me questions my own choices and the reasons behind them. Were they the right choices? Were they good choices? Honestly I don't think such things exist anymore. It is just life, living, learning and making decisions a long the way.
"Just trust yourself,
then you will know how to live."
--Goethe
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Exploring my own Backyard and Beyond
About Me
Favorite Quotes
"Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing,
you will be successful."
- Albert Schweitzer
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
-Used by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural speech
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing,
you will be successful."
- Albert Schweitzer
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
-Used by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural speech
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