There are 3 levels of “no regrets”:

The negative level: self-delusion.

The positive level: freeing yourself from regrets and starting over

The enlightened level: living every moment like it’s your last, living every moment as though your dead future self told you how to live.

 

The negative “no regrets” is a sure way to waste your life.

This is not truly freedom from regrets, mind you.

Regret is obviously there.

There just isn’t willingness to change.

There isn’t even willingness to admit the necessity to change.

There isn’t the courage and maturity to acknowledge the regret.

It’s a sad place to be.

Some people live there.

Most people have some part of themselves there.

 

The positive “no regrets” is the necessary freeing oneself from the burden of regrets, burden of the past.

Regret is there so that you know you could have done better.

Once you have gotten that information — you now set about a plan to improve.

Once you set in motion, truly set in motion the process of improving — regret is no longer necessary.

It is but a waste of space.

You let it go

 

The positive “no regrets” is actually rare.

Most of us move on to some degree, but are held back in many aspects of our lives.

We failed at something and now we think we are just not cut for it

We lost something once and now we think we can never get it back

We were hurt once and now we carry that hurt till our dying days

We were weak once but now we refuse letting go of that fear

Etc.

Regret actually PREVENTS you from improving yourself, at that point.

It has by now became a habit.

It no longer serves as a signal, or a motivator. It is now a character trait.

It must be penetrated with insight, uprooted, and then eradicated.

Became aware of it. Slowly disentangle it. Address it slowly and methodically. Propose improvement. Commit to it. Enact it. Observe the changes. Celebrate success. And let go of regret. Then repeat. Until you’re free from it.

 

Again, don’t just repeat “no regrets”. It’s actually dangerous. It can make you jaded… or worse yet — delusional.

Improve — THEN say “no regrets”.

Say: “no regrets — I did my best”

 

This indeed segues to the final level of “no regrets” — the enlightened level.

If you’re ALREADY doing your best — how can there be a regret?

If it’s your best than you can’t do it better either way — so what is there to regret?

What does it mean to “do one’s best” anyway? How can you know without hindsight?

You can know.

You already have the power to live this way

Because it’s actually not about the hindsight.

“Doing one’s best” is not about hindsight

If it was — then you would never have been able to do your best — because everything you ever do, you do BEFORE hindsight — NOT after.

Therefore it’s ONLY about “doing one’s best”. Not about doing anything specific.

It’s about the ATTENTION you give to given moment, the CARE and ENERGY you give.

Hindsight only makes you see that you haven’t truly given it everything

 

Any why haven’t you?

Because you were already elsewhere.

You were not thinking about today — but about tomorrow.

Or perhaps yesterday, perhaps regretting yesterday indeed, failing to “positively” free oneself from regrets.

But you weren’t today.

And for that reason, tomorrow, you will have regretted not having been there yesterday, not having given it everything.

You will actually be “nostalgic”, about that moment, about that life you lived then.

You will actually think that “it wasn’t so bad”

But you will also know that you “COULD have done better”.

 

…And then you’ll say “no regrets”

And depending on where you are spiritually, it will have different meaning.

Perhaps you be striving to make yourself forget.

Perhaps you be striving to give yourself another chance.

Or perhaps you will finally decide that it’s time to LIVE RIGHT NOW.

 

THIS is enlightened freedom from regrets

It’s living at peace knowing that WHATEVER HAPPENS — you already did your best

And you can only do it right now. You can’t do it tomorrow, and you obviously can’t do it yesterday.

You can only now decide how to LIVE so that tomorrow you KNOW it was the best — REGARDLESS of what happened.

Tomorrow it’s too late to come to that conclusion. You must ALREADY RIGHT NOW live in such way that there can NOT be a regret. If you have to wait till tomorrow — then you can never truly know if you’re doing the right thing, because tomorrow is never today.

So ONCE AGAIN: ask yourself WHAT IT IS that you must do TODAY that will be UNIVERSALLY GOOD, no matter what happens tomorrow

 

Text is continued with Part II: No Regrets: Enlightened “No Regrets”