There are some things in my life I have regretted. Things I have said or actions that I have taken either from bad choices or just being downright hurt. I think a lot of people can relate to that. I am always reading how not to dwell on things from the past but they tend to rear their ugly head every now and then.
At the time my actions are warranted or so I think they are and really believe that I am behaving the way I should. But when looking back in hindsight I realized that I could have probably handled it differently as to just let things be and not try to “fix” them.
I have had the best intentions but a monkey wrench has been thrown into the mix and the outcome is nothing I expect or want to happen. It just did and I regretted it for a long time. I tend to dwell on how I could have avoided it or made better choices. And it will linger for days and weeks. And I will tell myself that the biggest mistake I made was not paying attention.
There a lot of excuses I could give as to why I didn’t do the right thing. But I know that at the time my intentions were to make the best decision I knew how even though it backfired and hurt someone. And that’s when I beat myself for being human. I can apologize profusely only to have it not heard or not accepted.
I’ve have been on the other side and I can say that it hasn’t always been easy to accept what has happened. And that’s where the big lesson of forgiveness comes in. I’d be lying if I said that I have perfected the art of forgiveness. I am still hashing things out in my mind that had happened to me years ago and continue to have a hard time letting go. Sometimes the hurt runs too deep.
But the hurt is what I regret the most. Because I want to believe that the person or the incident wasn’t really meant to hurt me. It was to make me aware of how I need to treat others. To respect how they are and to hope that when all is said and done no one really wants to hurt each other.