Regret

Regret

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Regret is the pain of having done something that causes us suffering, and of wanting to change and do things differently in the future. There is a growing belief that we should not regret anything. But is that really the case? Regret is not a feeling that demeans us and makes us weak. Quite the contrary. It brings awareness, our awareness, to our actions or thoughts, and in a way that does not judge those actions and thoughts, but looks at them directly and realizes that they were not the best choices we could have made. Looking at them, a genuine desire is born within each of us to change course, to try to do things differently, and perhaps better.

I will now give you an example, sometimes used by Saint Teresa in her reflections. Repentance is like a little bird that, landing on a branch of a tree that has resin, finds itself stuck by it... When it finally finds a way to free itself, and even though it is no longer stuck to the tree branch, it still has to get rid of the resin residue on its feet.

Just as in our lives, when we distance ourselves from what we should be doing, and when we seek to act differently, more in line with sincerity and justice, we are free. Free to act and to choose, but we still have to seek to free ourselves from the small setbacks, represented by the resin that sticks to us... such as the feeling of being at fault. But the simple fact of freeing ourselves is in itself an achievement to be celebrated, an achievement to be congratulated and experienced joyfully.

A hiker, if climbing to the top of a mountain, stops from time to time, consults his compass and looks at the map. Knowing where you have to go and where you want to go does not mean you do not have to correct your direction. Turning back, turning the other way, is not a sign of weakness. Quite the contrary. It is a sign that we are focused on achieving our goal. That we know where we want our lives and our hearts to point. And even if we have that desire and that goal within us, we often have to realize whether the means and paths we are taking lead us in a dignified and sincere way to what we aspire to.

Anyone who says they have never regretted anything they have done in life, only regretting what they cannot do, is not speaking from serious and impartial reflection. Regret is not imprisonment or punishment, it is freedom and justice. It is something we should always resort to when necessary.

Repentance is forgiveness of ourselves, and it frees us from the most dehumanizing condition in life: guilt without the will to change.

^{Image by Jürgen from Pixabay
Original text written by me in Portuguese and translated with DeepL.com (free version)}