this will be my first blog update from my phone. i said in the last episode that my thoughts are very cluttered lately. i feel the need to continually put it into writing, so here we are.
there is a beast inside of me tonight. a demon, thrashing and clawing in the pit of my stomach. i am more conflicted now than i have been in many years. i dont know what has changed since september, but the golden life i once thought i had has turned into a gilded age of confusion and regret.
regret is a funny thing. many people try to convince themselves that they have no regrets. that everything happens for a reason, and you shouldnt feel bad for doing something that once made you happy. you mean to tell me its wrong to admit a mistake? that saying you screwed up and youve learned your lesson is bad? i have regrets. about many things.
a good friend said to me tonight that i should be proud of what ive accomplished, and not to fear oe be concerned with what others say. thank you
but my question, and i want answers, is this
are any of us truly capable of that? we all fear being wrong. its why we didnt want to get called on during school to answer a question we didnt understand. its why we fight for our side of an argument til the end, even if we are wrong.
why are we so afraid of being wrong? i say this, embrace your regret, admit your mistakes, and you will be stronger for it.
grant me this strength, and provide for me the means by which i will again feel the sense of control i once had. that is my prayer, that is my hope.
amen
Yes, I think we are truly capable of that. Easy? Not a chance. We are inclined to subject ourselves to the judgmental rulings of people who may or may not matter to us. But we are also capable to denying that inclination. The power of the human mind can never be limited - the ideas in our head have so much more control over what we do than we give them credit for.
ReplyDeleteYou've got a good head Jordan. (Face, maybe not so much. :]] JAY KAYYYY) If you earnestly decide to rid your mind of being concerned how others view you, it can happen. Live to please your God, yourself, and MAYBE those whose opinion truly makes an impact , but note, those people are usually impossible not to please. You are always capable to listening to your own opinions of regret and desire and change, and you are always capable of choosing not to disassociate.
The best way to do that? Realize that the life you're living really was never yours in the first place, that you may in fact be doing exactly what the God whom you pray to has decided for you to do. And hey - if he wants you to do something, is it really noteworthy that [insert name here] disagrees with it?
I mean hey - I'm 19, about to get hitched, and going to what the world that is mid-michigan knows as Last Chance College. But I am happy and I have regrets and I have wisdom and love and joy and assurance. Society tells me I'm too young, society tells me I should "strive for more". I tell society there is so much more to strive for than education and financial stability. So to me, if society tells me I'm making the wrong choices, than I am only extra assured I am making the exactly correct ones. Does the approval of a man-made institution really equal success? Or does knowing that if the world disapproves of me, which makes me in the world but not of the world, rank infinitely higher on the ladder of self-importance?
Have regrets, learn to love your regrets, make wrong choices, embrace wrong choices, pray, and strive away, young grasshopper. Just because the grass maybe isn't as green as some would wish it was, does not make it an inadequate hopping ground.
there is a difference between admitting to a mistake and having regrets. i know i've made mistakes, but i don't regret them because they were experiences, and i don't regret any experience. if you got anything out of our "big conversation" last time i saw you, it should have been that for me, the ultimate goal in life is simply "to experience". that means everything, including fuck-ups and unpleasant shit. it all enriches my life experience and i am grateful for it, even when it sucks.
ReplyDeletelife is like a great big personal library with infinite space, but when you're born all the shelves are empty. it's up to you to fill them with volumes of knowledge and experience, both "good" and "bad". and because i don't believe in good and bad, i don't have any fear of the opnions of others. i just do things that i think will be a valuable experience. i'll listen to the opnions and advice and input of people that i respect and value (friends & family) and i'll take it into account, but only to help me make an informed decision. i don't fear people's opinions and you know i don't accept judgement, because i don't believe that people have a right to judge anything as "bad". [go ahead and make your murder argument.] everything we do is in our nature, and therefore it's not "bad", it's just the way things are.
anyway, i want to know and do as many things as possible in my life. i don't regret any of it, i can't. i just want my library to be as full as possible when i die.