Regret and Guilt

Fun fact, nobody ever tells you about the regret when you’re trying to become a better person.  It’s strange really, things that you had thought were long forgotten sneak in and remind you of things you did that you wish you hadn’t, or that you had done differently.  Regret and guilt are necessary though.  There is no need to become a better person without them and using those feelings as a lesson or a tool is one of the ways you have to improve yourself.  The whole process of trying to improve yourself is that there is something you don’t like.  When trying to be a better person it’s almost always associated with guilt or regret.  They seem like bad words but they’re really just a sign that you might be evolving as a social being.  The tricky thing is to not allow yourself to get bogged down by it.  You have to keep looking forward and moving forward.  Make apologies when and where they are necessary but most of all just try to remember that things you have done or the person you were is the past.   The person you will be is guided by those regrets, the memories of the missteps or the steps not taken.  I have found that I spend what seems like half my waking time dealing with regrets about the past.  I am constantly second guessing myself about decisions I just made or am about to make.  Even in my sleep my dreams will often times remind me of things I wish I had done differently.  If I didn’t truly believe that it was a tool to help me remember to be a better person I would just go mad.  I had a very short period where I was really depressed because it seemed like I just couldn’t stop thinking about who I had been and wondering if it was the reason I had gone through troubles.  I wondered if I had done enough in my life to make up for my past.  I spent years just trying to do things that I thought might be able to balance the scales but then I began to wonder if just being a good person was enough.  You have to believe that you are a good person though or you’ll never feel like you’ve made up for the past.  That’s the tricky part about regret and guilt.  You need them, you have to use them, you just can’t let them linger or they make you crazy.  If you don’t believe you’re a good person you’ll never stop trying to fix the past and then the entire future will slip by.  Just spend every day trying to move forward in the best way possible.