2/22/2009

No Regrets

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

1 comment:

ButterflySunshine said...

I don't think your alone in your revelation. I think many people will always view life as good/bad. I am fortunate that I learned this lesson young...in my case if I looked at life that way I'd be pretty depressed, I was rebellious in my youth and made a lot of "mistakes" - but those choices let me where I am today, happily married with a full life. It's all about how you react and learn from the results of your decision - not the decision itself. I think.

Insightful post. Made me want to watch la vie en rose :)

Good luck with youg journey to a modified thought process.