Life Without Regrets

Today was less than giddy. In fact, I experienced some regrets. I did a lot of pacing about the house trying to figure out what I should have done differently. I lectured to the walls about this option and that. I pondered several imponderables aloud and vociferously to no one. But in the end I think I concluded that you simply can't carry around any regrets. The only true regret is that which comes from inaction. If you act at all times in accordance with your own best judgment at the time, then certainly you can go wrong but that's no reason to regret anything.

No, the only real regret I can imagine is the one you experience on your deathbed when you realize you missed your chance, that one moment of realization that you let opportunity slip from your grasp out of fear or laziness. If you tried and failed, then often that's satisfaction enough to know that you did your best. There are a few things I'd like to say I did before I die:

I'd like to see my name on the spine of a book. Not from one of those silly publishing houses that'll print your life story in book form for $1000 but a real, proper, commercial book. My adoration of the printed page has been so complete since even my earliest years that I feel it only apropos to give something back to the art form. Or, if nothing else, at least use up valuable paper resources that would have gone to pulp romance novels.

Earn the real, sincere applause of an audience. Yes, I know, this is totally out of character for me. I'm the type who hates to do anything in front of people it is in fact my greatest dread. But something inside me yearns to perform, to cast off the shackles of reality and assume the personae of someone totally different, to sing a song (badly in all likelihood) or tell a series of awful jokes in a bad rendition of someone else's voice. Doubtless this is just another form of escapism, a momentary rush to be experienced and described in minute detail later but it still earns a place on the list.

Host a really exclusive party. One to which I invite only friends I've known and talked to on a regular basis for 20 years. Preferably, of course, there would be someone to invite.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, I'd like to make a difference in someone's life. Not in a family member's life, that comes by default generally for good or bad. But just once I'd like to know that I helped a person in some significant way, that something I said or did had a real and positive impact on them. It'd just be nice to know I made a difference to someone outside the sphere of my own family. And this, I think I can safely say, is something we all want before we die.

Alright, I think I may have meandered a bit there but now that that's all out in the open let's get to work people. Make your lists and make sure that each day you do what it takes to have a peaceful deathbed. None of this pointless thrashing about at the very end screaming, "Oh!!!!! If only I'd planted daffodils instead of narcissus in the front flowerbed!" Let's figure out what we want to get done before we die and do it. No fear, no regrets!