Monday, June 10, 2013

Wondering What Might Have Been

One of the coolest things about blogging is that we often receive inspiration from each other through the topics we share on our blogs. Something that someone might say will ignite something inside ourselves that causes us to share it on our own blogs.

Such as it was after I read an awesomely written post by Jayne, over at injaynesworld.

So thank you, Jayne…x

Last week Jayne shared an honest and thought-provoking post about looking back on her high school years; wondering what might have been had she lived it differently.

Her post sparked a feeling of deep reflection within me that I decided to elaborate more on my comment to her through this post.

It seems that Jayne and I had a similar high school experience – it bored the bejeezus out of us, therefore we were not the most serious of students. And I can only speak for myself, but I really didn't apply any effort to my studies. My only wish was to get through it as quickly as possible and then throw myself into the real world, where I knew I would acquire my own way of education by just living life and seeking it myself.

I think we have ALL looked back to particular time in our life, whether it be high school, a relationship or marriage we had, a friendship, or even a brief encounter we experienced, in which we now think, “God…if I could only do it over, I would have done it differently.”

But would we have?

That’s so easy to say to ourselves, but what we seem to forget is that we had a different awareness back then and didn’t know what we know now. But most importantly, I believe we needed those experiences back then because they are what transformed us into the people we are now.

We also seem to forget that during those experiences, many of our personal strengths and assets were being developed; regardless if we did it the 'correct' way because we did 'our' way.

We often reminisce and feel as though we took valuable time and wasted it by not doing what we should have done, and that our life might be so much different now had we done it some other way. But that’s because we frequently compare and judge ourselves against the manner and timing of how everyone else does things.

Yet I think we all learn differently, therefore we grow and blossom in our own manner and time.

Personally, I don’t believe in regrets or 'if I could only do it over.'

There is really no point in regretting or judging back then, there is just the present.

And the present is where the value lies.

I also believe that everything happens for a reason and the way it’s supposed to happen.

So if we can take what we learned back then and look at the valuable growth we achieved and then apply it to the present, then there is no need for regret because it was all part of our individual process.

Therefore, we should celebrate what we have become due to back then.

And yes, our lives probably would be different had we done it differently.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean better or easier.

We are all perfect just the way our life was.

And is.

Because we grew through it...

...and now here we are.