One thing I do know: regret is killing my joy. It’s probably also inhibiting my relationships. 

Underneath the regret must be some kind of ego force at work, an inability or unwillingness to accept what is. 

I pour out my heart in prayer every day, praying for the capacity to let go. Just to be. I am trying. 

That an organism, a sentient being, would have an instrument that self-inflicts its own despair is a mystery. We are here like blades of grass and then we vanish for an eternity. Whew! There just is no time for sorrow. It’s a terrible waste of the preciousness and beauty of life, friendship and love. It makes no sense.  

My dog doesn’t live in regret. Nor does a quarterback who throws a game winning touchdown with five seconds left, only to get it voided by a holding call. The job of the quarterback is to get right back in the game and throw another one. And yeah, sure, the odds are against throwing yet another touchdown pass with five seconds to go.

But maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the point is to go through life constantly regenerating, constantly striving with a joyful, positive outlook, regardless of what might be happening in the moment. I seem to know all this. But feeling it, embodying it, seems to be an entirely different and more challenging matter.

“You are just three feet from gold,” says Napoleon Hill. 

The whole thing about never quitting, facing down adversity, building it no matter how many times, staying positive, yada yada… Well, I’m trying. But God, I’m falling so short, and am in so much pain.

Somehow, if failure is the seed of success, and if I’m three feet from gold, then that means I have to turn my regret into gold. Somehow I have to transform the pain into some sort of activity that can help and serve others.

But I can’t be a martyr. That was the programming from my family. “Martyrdom. Woe is me. Life dealt me a lousy deck of cards. I’ll sacrifice myself for others.” 

No, Jim Rohn said that self-development earns respect while self-sacrifice earns contempt. I have to allow that what I do will help me, too. Perhaps I’ve been programmed by to feel unworthy. Some people are technically challenged. I’m self-esteem challenged.

So where’s the gold in the regret? Well, I don’t know, but Tony Robbins assures us that questions are a great first start. By asking the right questions, you send a signal to your reticular activating system to focus on finding an answer.

It’s not only the past. It’s as if I regret my future. It’s as if I’m so washed up and so unable to figure out what to do next. Having a promising future, meaning, something to look forward to is all I ask of the Universe. I pour out my heart every day, praying that the Lord will open my heart and my eyes to whatever divine wisdom he sends me. 

I’ve even started just saying thank you when the heartache of regret comes. Not to encourage it, but more along the lines of, “Lord, I see it’s coming, I thank you for teaching me humility and for sending this opportunity for character building.” Somehow, my intuition tells me that this is the whole point: when these negative feelings swell up inside of me, they are manifestations of my old programming, the patterns I learned as a child. “Woe is me!” Victimhood! Fear! Worry! Doubt! 

Silly programming. This is the whole point: it will continue to occur until I figure out how to wipe it out. Transform it. Sterilize it. Whatever word you want to use. God doesn’t punish us by sending us this pain. Rather, he presents us with an opportunity to work out our dharma. In so doing, we earn our liberation and can set a fine example for others.

I signed up for this. I really believe, or feel deeply, that we choose our parents for the purposes of working out our dharma. I feel it in my bones. And yet, if I say I believe all this, what is the continuing source of the pain? Why is it such a resistant strain?

I guess I have more forgiveness work to do. 

Forgiving others, forgiving my parents has been much, much easier than forgiving myself. For 45 years, I lived asleep, unaware of the source of the deeper current of pain pulsating within me. I know what it’s like to run smack through life like a blind man, reacting emotionally instead of responding constructively to the inevitable challenges of life. I’ve walked in my parents’ shoes, their emotional shoes, because I myself have worn them, I was programmed by them. I responded to the adversities of my life, just as they did to theirs, with fear, anxiety, worry, doubt, anger, even hysteria. 

So I have empathy. Their toolkit was broken. Or they never even had a toolkit. They did their best with what they had. Forgiving them has been easy. They were ignorant. I was ignorant. I know what that’s like.

But how to forgive myself? Oh gosh, this is so, so painful. God must have sent me a million great opportunities in my life, wonderful people, wonderful schools, wonderful jobs… and I either sabotaged them or turned them down. I was living in so much pain that something else was calling me, pulling me. I needed to heal and didn’t even know it. 

Now, as I slowly awaken, slowly learn to breathe for the first time, slowly begin the discipline of meditation, I am still haunted and taunted by regret, disappointment, hurt. I am having so much trouble letting go of all that I have lost.