Regrets? I’ve had a Few!

You know, we wouldn't correct our mistakes even if we could!
by Charlie Leck

It's a fact, Jack! We made some terrible blunders along the way to getting here. Yes, we! I'm talking about you, you rock head.

Look around you! Life's not so bad. Oh, sure you're wearing too many years and, if you had it to do again, you'd eat better, get more exercise and be more careful about the sun. But, if you survey your lot, you're pretty happy. Look at the kids! They made it and they're pretty much okay. You love 'em like absolute crazy and now they're producing another generation of your genealogical lineage and you love those little grandchildren like no one else could believe.

Not bad, eh?

So why are you regretting that terrible mistake you made over 40 years ago – the one that would have taken you in another direction, toward another place that would have prevented you from getting to this place? And had you, those particular, wonderful little ones wouldn't be there, where they are.

You'll get yourself all screwed around if you keep thinking like that, so just knock it off. So you should have selected another major in college! Maybe you should even have chosen a different school. That big university would have been better! You shouldn't have fooled yourself into thinking you were in love when you didn't know the first thing about love! You should have accepted that job offer in that pretty little town up along Lake Michigan! You shouldn't have turned down that offer to move to the nation's capitol.

Don't be so stupid! Had you not made that string of mistakes that little kid would not be there now, crawling her way across that oriental carpet; and her sister wouldn't be there either; nor her mother and her sisters and that wonderful, loving person who sleeps next to you each night.

Combined, all the good and all the dumb things you've done along the way have led you here, where you now sit and look out at the tree tops and think of all those loving, beautiful beings that you created and can't imagine not being there.

So, stop already! Get over it! Sure you've made some bone-head, stupid mistakes. I agree with you. Some of them I can't believe. How could you do something that dumb? However, my friend, it's done and each of those grand mistakes, along with the one or two sensible things you've done, has led you here. It's hard to believe you made it in one piece.