Regret

I had to write a paper for my indigenous ways of knowing class on things I might regret. This is what I came up with:

Regret. I am supposed to write about what I regret in life for this class. The funny thing is this: I have come to really reframe my attitudes about regret as I have gotten older. The thing is this: I am 29 years old and I can honestly say that I have no regrets in my life.

In reflecting over my life, yes, maybe there are things that I might have done differently if I knew some things about myself and the world that I know now. I realize that I have preferred to go to a university that had classes in some of the more specific things that I was interested in instead of going to the Luther college in Iowa. But I do not know if I really knew enough about myself at the time to know that I prefer musical theater over church music and opera, that I enjoy connecting with people but I tend to prefer going out for a quiet drink with someone instead of going to a large party or gathering, and the list could go on and on. The truth is that in my late teens and early twenties I do not think I really knew myself the same way I know myself now.

I have learned not to agonize over what did not happen, as even though I struggled with a more conservative approach to theology that was dominant in some of the campus ministry circles that I tried to run in, that it was the tears that I cried and the questions that I asked that actually made the campus pastors encourage me to come to seminary. So even though there were ways that the Luther College Community did not match up to what I would learn later that my true desires are, I do not regret going to that college because that is what lead me to want to come to a more liberal leaning seminary.

Now that I am more aware of who I am and the way that the world operates, I think that there are things I could have done differently in my personal life. However, I honestly did the best that I could with those decisions at those points in time. I always been a believer in reflecting over things before moving onto what is next so that I do not repeat the same mistakes again. For example, when I first moved out to Berkeley I lived with a roommate that I did not have a chance to get to know at all first. It wound up being a terrible experience, but I honestly was one of the last students in my class to confirm my enrollment, and I honestly could not afford to live by myself. I lived with her for my first semester, but then I was committed to moving on. After that, I realized that even though it is important to be cautious about how much I spend on housing that it is actually a very good thing to feel discerning about who I could actually live with. I knew to get out of that housing situation and I have been in a variety of living situations since then. I could look at this as a big regret as it had a large negative influence on my life at that point in time. If I had to do it over again, I probably would have practiced more of a right to say no to living with her if I went back in time and made that decision now. Yet it was almost as if I needed to have that situation in order to really learn that it is okay to be picky about who I live with. I have looked at it as a learning experience to allow myself to be discerning about who I can and can not live with.

There are some things that I would like the opportunity to do still, but I do not regret not doing them as the appropriate circumstances have never presented themselves.I would like to be married but I do not regret not being married at this point in my life, I just do not feel like I have found someone I feel like I could marry yet. I also have things that I was not happy to leave behind, but it was absolutely necessary to do so in order to do well with what was in front of me. For example, I was never enthusiastic to leave things like creative writing and theater behind, but it was necessary to do so in order for me to stay focused on getting to and through seminary. But now that my academic work is almost done, I feel more freedom to pursue these types of things again. Do I “regret” leaving them behind for the past few years? No, I needed to focus my energy on having the money to go to school and on my school work once I was in school. But I never viewed not being married or not pursuing my creative tendencies in seminary as permanent decisions, but rather as things that are not in the current season of my life.

I am coming out of a very academically oriented season of my life. Its been what I needed to do in my time in seminary. I do not know what the next “season” will bring, however, I am realizing that pursuing projects and communities that encourage my interests in theater or creative writing is something that is important to me and I would l. That is something that I will seek to incorporate somehow in my next season of serving in parish ministry outside my church. I do not know what kind of shape that this will take. I guess I do not view it as a regret of something I did not pursue more these past few years, but as an opportunity of knowing the sort of things that I do want to embrace now that I am almost done. I am just curious to see what kind of shape that it is going to take.

I think that I have come to terms with the fact that I have multiple interests and multiple things that I would like to have a chance to do while I am still on this earth. But I feel like the life that I have lead up to this point in time has been very full and that I think that I have often made the decisions that I needed to make at particular points in time. I realized that I was still learning about myself while I was in college and that while on one hand if I knew about myself now that I knew then that I would have made some different choices in where I went to school. But had I done that, I might not have felt as encouraged to come to seminary, and I might not have wound up in seminary here in Berkeley California. This is what I call the “Back to the Future” effect, and quite honestly I am happy to be where I am at right now. I realize that there are things I could have done differently had I known the effect they would have, like my initial rooming situation in Berkeley, but that was a learning experience for me as I not only got out of the situation, but reflected over what needed to happen for that pattern not to have been continued. I realize that I am only 29 years old and that the things that I wished I could have for myself these past few years are things that I still have the opportunity to make happen for myself.

These are the reasons why I can say that I have no regret. Yes, there are things that I could have done differently. Yes, there are things that I still want the opportunity to do. And I trust that as I have even more life experiences that there will always be more in each category. Yet I have come to a certain level of peace in understanding that I will never behave perfectly in any situation. I have come to a certain level of excitement in understanding that life will always bring more opportunities. I think that it has been in learning to listen to who I really am while being committed to honoring the people around me as much as possible that may have contributed to not living with a lot of regret. I think it may be because I view life as something that is not over, but there for me every day that I wake up that makes me realize that every day is a learning experience and an opportunity.