Feb 2015
I was walking around the house I live in today picking up after the morning rush hour as I call it. I have been here a little over three years so it is very familiar, the clothes are mine the books, the furniture, the children, every room every smell is me. Then I went to my ensuite to brush my teeth and as I looked in the mirror I noticed that the person in there was not as familiar as everything I had just seen. He was old, a little overweight and had a lost sad look in his eyes. It made me ponder and wonder how he had gone from being what I was expecting to see in the mirror, to this stranger who looks so lost and removed from how he was supposed to turn out.
My eldest daughter turned 16 last Wednesday, and we spent the day together doing a little shopping, just hanging out, talking about everything and nothing as it were and I was talking about “the old days”, and she said but you can’t’ live with regrets, to which I replied yes you can, you do , and you can’t avoid it, What you have to do is realize the stuff that you need to regret to prevent yourself or any one that you love deeply doing similar things which will lead them down a path of regret. I gave her the best and closest and most personal example I could give her at the time and that was meeting her mother whom I am no longer with. Now her mother over the years caused me heartache and pain, made me question my own values and judgements, alienate people whom I trusted and loved for years, amongst many other things, I am in no way blaming her, it is just a statement of fact from my perspective. Do I regret meeting her, of course not how can I. I have three children whom I love more than my own life because I met her. Can I regret some of the decisions I made in that relationship, of course not, everything you do has a causal effect on the future, if I regretted anything in that relationship it would change the way things are now, My children live with me, and if I regretted i.e. wanted to change something about my time with their mother it may change where I am today, Once again my children live with me, are healthy and love me, why would I want risk changing that. Of course this is all theoretical because we can’t change the past, take back what we did etc. but it does make for an interesting discussion and of course is the subject of many Hollywood movies.
The Back to the future franchise manages to cover the subject with humour whist the movie” The Butterfly Effect” with Ashton Kutcher was very dark, but dealt with essentially the same subject, change the past and its causal effect on the current.
“Regrets I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention my friends I’ll say it clear I'll state my case of which I’m certain to think I did all that and may I say not in a shy way, oh no. oh no not me, I did it, my way.”
If only I was sure of my choices as Frank Sinatra.
My eldest daughter turned 16 last Wednesday, and we spent the day together doing a little shopping, just hanging out, talking about everything and nothing as it were and I was talking about “the old days”, and she said but you can’t’ live with regrets, to which I replied yes you can, you do , and you can’t avoid it, What you have to do is realize the stuff that you need to regret to prevent yourself or any one that you love deeply doing similar things which will lead them down a path of regret. I gave her the best and closest and most personal example I could give her at the time and that was meeting her mother whom I am no longer with. Now her mother over the years caused me heartache and pain, made me question my own values and judgements, alienate people whom I trusted and loved for years, amongst many other things, I am in no way blaming her, it is just a statement of fact from my perspective. Do I regret meeting her, of course not how can I. I have three children whom I love more than my own life because I met her. Can I regret some of the decisions I made in that relationship, of course not, everything you do has a causal effect on the future, if I regretted anything in that relationship it would change the way things are now, My children live with me, and if I regretted i.e. wanted to change something about my time with their mother it may change where I am today, Once again my children live with me, are healthy and love me, why would I want risk changing that. Of course this is all theoretical because we can’t change the past, take back what we did etc. but it does make for an interesting discussion and of course is the subject of many Hollywood movies.
The Back to the future franchise manages to cover the subject with humour whist the movie” The Butterfly Effect” with Ashton Kutcher was very dark, but dealt with essentially the same subject, change the past and its causal effect on the current.
“Regrets I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention my friends I’ll say it clear I'll state my case of which I’m certain to think I did all that and may I say not in a shy way, oh no. oh no not me, I did it, my way.”
If only I was sure of my choices as Frank Sinatra.
