A Life Without Regret Is a Life Not Lived

I was responding to a friend's humorous meme post on Facebook which dealt with the topic of regret.  Namely, it was about how it is funny seeing a friend do something they'll regret later, but encouraging to do so anyway.   My point was that if you were a 'real' friend, you'd be in the trenches with them engaging in the activity that you both would regret.  In the process of discussing it, it occurred to me: a life that is rich (and truly lived) will have regret in it.

Now, I'm not encouraging extreme deviancy or anything like that, but at the same time, some of the most fulfilling times or aspects of our lives involve behaviors, actions and choices (BAC) that could potentially lead to regret.  For most people, responsibility is drilled in our head from an early age:

• Be a good listener
• Obey or mind your parents/elders/teachers
• Drive defensively/responsibly
• Do your homework/put your education first/choose wisely your career.
• Eat your vegetables/lay off of the junk food
• Do unto others/consider the feelings of others
• Spend your money wisely
• Choose your friends wisely
• Drink responsibly
• Wait for the pedestrian crossing light says it is safe walk/walk in the crosswalk.
• Brush your teeth after every meal/floss daily
• Don't talk to strangers
• Don't drink/smoke/do drugs/curse
• Get plenty of sleep
• Obey warning signs

I could go on, but get the idea.  We are taught to do this and that and to not do this or that.  In short, we are taught to be RESPONSIBLE, RESPONSIBLE, RESPONSIBLE.  Usually, the advice given is good advice for living and interacting with others.  However, as I said to my daughter one time when we saw a sign told us not to sit on a wall, "Some rules are meant to be broken".  So, we did so and watched fireworks. In other words, some rules are so overbearing, overprotective, outdated, discredited or just plain ridiculous, that they are just begging to be ignored.   But, I digress.

If we spend our lives always making sure we 'do the right thing', we miss out on:

• Learning from our mistakes
• Doing it better next time (if there is a next time)
• Being better to appreciate the value of good choices.  
• Figuring out our limits/boundaries and when it is okay to push them and when it is good to back off.
• Being able to lighten up laugh at ourselves and have others view us as more approachable. In other words, personality.

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For me, this whole concept is illustrated beautifully in Tapestry (Star Trek: The Next Generation).  In that episode Captain Picard apparently, had died on the operating table in the present due to injuries to his artificial heart.  A normal heart would have survived the injury, but unfortunately when he was younger he needed an artificial heart.  The character Q, who is a God-like figure, gives Picard a chance to look back on (and apparently have a second chance at the circumstances surrounding the need for an artificial heart and hence avoid dying on the table in the present.

Picard was a rash, impulsive young man when he was in the Starfleet Academy. He lost his original heart when he unadvisedly joined a brawl in support of a friend.  His friend had been cheated in a bar game by a group called Nausicaans and had returned the favor by cheating them.  This enraged the Nausicaans and propelled his friend into a conflict with them.  Picard had joined the ensuing conflict and was stabbed in the heart, nearly dying in the process leading to the need for an artificial heart.

Picard had always regretted his impulsive attitude that led to his near death as a young man. So, when given a chance by Q to see how his life would have turned out had he avoided the nearly fatal conflict he jumped at it.  This time when his friend was confronted, he stepped in and defused the conflict, humiliating his friend in the process.  Fast forward to the alternative present.  Picard, instead of being a captain, was a miserable undistinguished ensign.  Those whom he know as his crew were now over him.  He asked them why he was an ensign and they indicated that it was because he played it safe.  When asked about it Q explained that the incident he regretted gave him a sense of his own mortality.  It also taught him that sometimes the value of life.  In other words, life is too valuable to just to waste it in fear of losing it.  In his alternative present, Picard had not learned that lesson and just like he did in the conflict in the bar--in the alternative past--with the Nausicaans, he avoided risk at all cost, leading to his mediocrity.

Picard now realize the thing that he regretted was the thing that gave him direction, a respect for his boundaries and when to push them and when not to.  In other words, it gives him clarity as to what's important and led him to being respected by others.  In short, he impulsively took a chance that he would regret, but that chance and the consequences of it gave him more clarified his life.  Had he just played it safe in life, he would not have gained that focus and clarity and sense of what's important.  Ultimately, Q gives him the opportunity to replay the fight again one more time.  This time Picard jumps in to defend his friend's honor, getting stabbed in the heart in the process.  He then woke up in the present in sick bay, apparently having come back to life with his artificial heart.

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I'm not saying it is great to live your life, purposely making terrible choices or taking very dangerous chances.  However, understand that we learn through our 'mistakes'.  They can build us, shape us and give us clarity.  While taking chances and pushing boundaries can put some off some people off, it can also attract others who see us as being fearless or brave and who has a sense of adventure.  IMHO, If we always avoid choices and decisions that we think we might regret, we risk living an unsatisfying mediocre life, like Captain Picard in Tapestry.  In other words, in some ways, it is going through the motions or just being alive.  That's why I say, "A life without regret is not a life lived."

Peace out,
Rich