Hannah Montana really knew what she was talking about when she sang “Nobody's perfect.” It is a universal human trait that people make mistakes, people mess up, people do dumb things. And even when we grow and we learn from our missteps, it can be hard to let go of them. Is it even possible to live life without regrets?
Throughout high school and the beginning of my college career I made a lot of mistakes. Each time I messed up I thought it was the end of the world. But somehow, everything worked out and now I am a more mature, strong individual because of the hard times that I have endured and the mistakes that I have learned from.
Yet, even though I know that I have grown, I still cannot confidently say that I live a life without regret. My regrets still haunt me each and everyday. They are a constant reminder of the mistakes that I have made and they push me to be better and better and better until I nearly crack. My regrets surface in all different forms. The quick glimpse of a post on my Facebook newsfeed, passing by a familiar face on campus, walking by a place I used to know so well. I have tried for years to push my regrets to the back of my mind. To keep them so suppressed that I nearly became numb to them. But all of that bottling up just brings you down, so low that you feel nothing but depressed. So it is time to let go of my regrets, and to move forward. Time to make the most out of my present life, and to right any wrongs that I can't leave behind.
When trying to let go of the past, it is important to realize that it is the past and we are now in the present. Since time machines do not exist, there is no way to go back and redo things. Thus, our mistakes and regrets have been done and there is no way to make them fully go away. So why dwell on them? What good will it do me to lay in bed crying for hours over something that happened two or three years ago? Obviously it still hurts to think about regrets, but it is more important to think about the positives. Think about how far you have come since something bad happened. Think about the positives that have come out of your experiences. Think about how you can still work to change the outcome of mistakes you've made, in order to make things better in the present. Constantly thinking about the past could legit drive a person crazy, so think about the future or think about the present.
Making mistakes and having regrets is a natural part of growing up. We all pick the wrong significant other, or make dumb mistakes that cause us to lose our potential soul mate. We sneak out and get caught by our parents, diminishing their trust for us. We tell ourselves we won’t eat that giant piece of chocolate cake, but decide to do it anyway. We skip doing an assigned reading, and regret it when there is a pop quiz the next morning. Mistakes and regrets come in endless shapes and forms. It is up to us to right our wrongs and come out stronger in the end. We can’t let our pasts hold us back, or our mistakes bring us down. Life is too short for that.
