My Regret

Peter S. Beagle wrote "The Last Unicorn". In that book, the main character is a unicorn...the last unicorn. Unicorns have, amongst their many intriguing talents, a lack of regret. I really identify with that trait. I do not wish to regret my life, or any part of it.

Until recently, I attempted to live without regrets and have been largely successful. But something about lengthening nights gives me time to ruminate about my life, and things that I actually do regret.

I regret not sending out more cards to friends at holidays...God knows how much I enjoy them, it is time to return some of that feeling to others.

I regret saying "No" more often than "yes".

I regret that it took me six years to learn fallability.

I regret missed opportunities. It is so difficult to look back and realize that if I'd only had my eyes and heart open, my life could have taken a completely different path.

And now, words of wisdom about regret.

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. -Alexander Graham Bell

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. -Harriet Beecher Stowe

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. -Sydney J. Harris

All I can say...bring on longer days, they chase the melancholy away.

Submit and accept

Submit, meaning to yield. Accept, meaning to endure without protest or reaction. These are arguably two of the most difficult words in the English language. Taken at first blush, the terms are simple, elegant even. These concepts find their most common habitat in religion. "Submit to the will of God" or "accept life's challenges as gifts from God, not obstacles in your way."

Yet, taken out of a religious context, these words still evoke powerful response. Our society reveres those who struggle, who refuse to yield. We constantly root for the underdog who fights to win past insurmountable odds(eg. Rocky Balboa).

To submit does seem powerless, at first. That is, until you recognize that to submit is a choice, an action to be taken. Having a choice gives you power. Accepting that choice with grace and determination only lends more power to that choice.

Think upon Voltaire's Candide for a moment. The final lines of which are

There is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine castle for the love of Miss Cunegund; had you not been put into the Inquisition; had you not traveled over America on foot; had you not run the Baron through the body; and had you not lost all your sheep, which you brought from the good country of El Dorado, you would not have been here to eat preserved citrons and pistachio nuts."

"Excellently observed," answered Candide; "but let us cultivate our garden."