Sat 22 Dec 2012
Is It Better to Have Done and Lost, Than Never to Have Done at All?
Posted by cindy under Mental States at 10:24 am[2] Comments
Well hey, look at the date! I do believe I’m blogging BEYOND the end of the Mayan calendar. So where are we now? In a new cycle, of course. A new calendar. Moving on…
There’s a quote a friend posted on the social networking site, attributed to Lucille Ball:
I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.
This is a popular notion and I’ve heard it in various forms. I don’t know if I’m a fuddy duddy or fatalistic or what the problem is, but I’ve always found the thought of that uncomfortable. To regret the things I’ve done would mean I’ve done something “negative.” To regret not doing something would mean I’ve missed out on something “positive.” I still think I’d rather miss out on doing something positive than to have done something bad that could negatively affect others. I would never think it’s okay to get crazy drunk out in public because I’m throwing caution to the wind to have fun so I don’t regret missing out, and then on my drive home, plow my car into a innocent driver. I can handle missing out on something fun; I can learn from that. But no amount of learning from doing an easily preventable damaging act could ever make things okay for the people involved. Go ahead and laugh at me for being no fun, being overly conservative, being the only sober one at a Vegas party. That is infinitely better to me than the morning after, doing the Walk of Shame, or waking up in jail or the hospital.
…until I finish building my time machine.
Hmm, you’re not alone. Though I definitely feel “regret” for not being more adventurous. I think your post has helped me realize though that perhaps in my caution, I have done myself good by not doing others bad.
It’s similar to the phrase “better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all”. But… a lot of people would even disagree with that!
Let me know when you invent that time machine! Haha…
you have regrets for complacency? then I guess that’s something you can strive to change. I don’t actually have any of those regrets because I’m fine and happy and I feel like all the stuff I’d wanted to do, I’ve done. well…with exception to windsurfing.
And that quote, yes, that’s what my post title alludes to.