Is there something you have done/not done that you regret and can’t forgive yourself for? Doesn’t have to be a “bad” thing we’ve done, could just be a stupid decision or something you didn’t realize could have such impact and lasting consequences.
There’s many stupid decisions I made that at the time I couldn’t have predicted it would lead to this, but nonetheless the present is the way it is bc of past stupid decisions/actions/inactions. It’s not easy to forgive oneself bc each of those decisions have led me to my current fucked up life. Some fucking up my health- not done intentionally ofc but nonetheless, the results are the same, intentionally or not. And health/mobility/body parts isn’t something you can easily fix or undo and everything is fine and dandy.
Ex- I had a bad feeling about this dentist and should have left immediately, and at the time i did think i ought to leave immediately, but I ignored my gut instinct at the time. It was my very first appt with the dentist and I had checked Yelp beforehand, he had great reviews and there seemed no reason to not trust this dentist. Well, long story short is that this fucking POS dentist destroyed my mouth bc he’s a greedy POS. Had I trusted my gut instinct and left immediately, I wouldn’t be having daily life-long issues with my teeth, gums, mouth, eating. It’s totally fucked up now.
Ex- I had a feeling I should cancel my last appt with the podiatrist bc he wasn’t helping, but it was the last appt so I figured I’d just go and finish my sessions. Well, long story short, the fucking idiot fucked up my foot, I couldn’t walk for 2 years, and to this day, my foot is still fucked up. I can walk some now but walking anywhere is a struggle. My foot is never going to be the same and all I had to do was cancel that last appt and didn’t. For some reason I had a bad feeling about it (all the previous sessions I had with him were fine- he didn’t help but also didn’t do any harm) and had thought to cancel at the time but then decided to just finish out my final appt. It’s fucked my foot up for life
And no, please do NOT talk about lawsuits and suing the drs bc both were years ago so that ship has sailed, and I knew fighting Goliath/Medical Industrial Complex was next to impossible. And I didn’t have the money, lawyers, nor the health to fight it.
How do we move on past that?
How do we forgive ourselves?
How can we forgive ourselves for idiotic decisions when those decisions impact our life to this day- and beyond- since some of it is health related?
It’s not something we can just “get over” or forget and forgive bc it impacts daily life TODAY and for the REST of our lives.
They’re really significant health problems btw, affecting my mobility, eating, every day living, so it’s not insignificant or something I can easily “forgive” myself for and move on with my life.
I beat myself over on this bc I did have the initial bad gut feeling but ignored it and decided not to be paranoid and trust the drs bc at the time, there was no reason to NOT trust them. The issue is- I did have the bad gut feeling and I ignored it- and now my body is fucked bc I didn’t listen to my initial gut instinct.
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There is a pact I made with my future self: I will never blame my future self for decisions of my present self.
This pact helped me make tough/complex decisions. Such as marriage. People tell me you’ll regret not marrying later. But it just doesn’t apply to me because of the pact. I recognize the limitations of my present self, my present knowledge/wisdom but I also recognize its liveliness. No one can take the decision except present self. I don’t know everything now but I have the take the decision now with the limited knowledge and wisdom I currently have. This is how I ease burden on my present self and remove regret element from future self.
You didn’t know back then what you know now. That’s how you forgive yourself.
well, there’s no going back, so that’s my start, knowing it isn’t productive, but emotionally regret is unavoidable, so knowing logically it is useless is only so useful. I still start from there, knowing the emotion comes from an unreasonable and illogical place puts it firmly in the to be dealt with pile, as opposed to the maybe this emotion has a point. Regret has the point of making you try better, but beyond that useless.
I’ve always been a fan of time travel stories, so the subject of causality comes up a fair amount of the time. Causality directly relates to regret, because the thing we think caused something might not have, and that other choice leads somewhere we can’t predict.
My big one is that I bought a house in 2009, and that has kept me in a state and climate which I find unpleasant. Yet, because I resent that decision, I’ve tried playing out other scenarios. Maybe all economies are as futile and hopeless as the one I’ve spent my life trying to derive value out of. If that is true, then this regret is actually wrong.
See, because my family has been willing to pay to keep me here, because I live near them. Actually getting cash out of them is hard, but the house has been something I could invest in. Home values here are going up, and the chances are very high that my equity will amount to more than I could have saved up in any other scenario. So, this path I’m functionally richer than in the alternative where I don’t take it.
Also, most people in my generation can’t buy a house. If it hadn’t of been for some very specific situations I wouldn’t have been able to buy this one. The equity I have, it’s enough I could buy a piece of land and be free.
but my final answer to regret is that I used the best information I had at my disposal at the time. I know things now that I didn’t know then, some of them specifically because I made that decision.
I still, unfortunately, have more of my life ahead of me than behind me. So, how to resolve that seems a better place to spend my energy, when I have energy to spend.
i didn’t “know” but i had that gut instinct to leave/not go at the time and i didn’t listen to myself. i had that bad feeling but ignored it. yeah i didn’t “know” but had i turned around and left, my body wouldn’t have gotten messed up.
it’s simultaneously not my fault, but also my fault for not listening to my gut and leaving/not seeing the shitty drs.
i get what you’re saying but when it comes to health, it’s not something one can easily forget and forgive, bc it affects every day of my current life and my future life. i screwed myself over essentially.
well, in your case, if you had to do it all over again, you might have made the same choice bc this scenario- albeit you’re in a city/state you hate- is better for you financially than if you hadn’t bought the house. if you rented elsewhere, you’d be “happier” in a better city/state, but you’d probably be stuck renting forever. so in your case, did you make a “mistake”? probably not in the long run…after you cash out
Being born.