I’ve
spent my life wasting things.
Part
of this is because I’ve always lacked the ability to focus on a single purpose.
(Forgive me for the high school examples, but they are the easiest.) When I
played football, I wanted to be playing basketball—so I quit football. When I
was playing basketball, I was thinking about girls—so I was always distracted.
When I was dating a girl, I was thinking about another girl—so I made a mess of
a lot of relationships.
But
I’ve always justified my decisions because they eventually work out well enough.
After all, I watched my cousin get his femur snapped in half playing football a
couple of years later, I was an All-State basketball player and our team made
the state tournament, and I married a beautiful, intelligent, driven woman (who
has helped me realize and correct my weaknesses, for which I am grateful). My
decisions couldn’t have been too bad, right? However, now I wish that I would
have never quit football, that I had actually given my all in basketball, and
that I wouldn’t have been so selfish in all of my relationships, including friends
and family.
This
is why I will never understand people who say they have no regrets. You can say
you live your life with no regrets, but I don’t believe it’s possible. Granted,
you probably can bury your regrets with pride. But not recognizing or acknowledging
your regrets isn’t the same as not having any.
I
have thousands of regrets, and I would gladly go back and change all of them if
I could.
Ironically,
another part of my problem is that I spend most of my time in the past or the future
(as I’m doing now), never the present. Most people struggle with the same
thing, I think, but that isn’t an excuse. Maybe this is why people attempt to
deny their regrets, so they won’t spend time dwelling on the past?
My
most recent regrets are a little more complex than high school sports or
meaningless relationships, but the problem remains the same: I am still wasting
things, now more consciously than ever. I understand that I have wasted years of
opportunity, talent, and potential, but I continue to struggle to change.
Thus,
restarting this blog was supposed to be the first step in correcting my proclivity
for waste, apathy, and procrastination. Now I plan to take another step. I’ve
been imagining, planning, and working on numerous projects over the last year.
Hopefully I can continue to correct 26 years of wasting things and have
something to show you very soon, dear reader.
Comments
Post a Comment