Last post was about the past was it? see what I did there? Well anyway, yes I'm making this post as a serial. This topic will come and go, every part will have different, yet interlacing, topic. Things in life tend to link with one event or another, in a way we can call it the Domino Effect, a motion starts in, and it doesn’t stop until the last piece falls, or in reverse, if you lift the last piece without moving anything, all the other pieces will move up, their movements interlace with each other.
Now, you're thinking, what can interlace with the past right? I mean we've moved on, time can't go back, which means the past is history, nothing will affect us. No, you're wrong, there is one thing, if not any more, that still affects us, and that's regret. The past in any stage of your life, I guarantee you this, will haunt you. Even if it’s a good memory, it will haunt you, in the context of; it will bother you one way or another.
What now? You think regret is easy to come over? Think again. Haven't we all had that time where we wish we can time travel? Change the outcome of events, or the acts you've done? In one way or another, you will want to be able to achieve something, even if that means you have to cheat your way through it. There is no easy way in achieving something, and the good of you takes over and you think against cheating. In the end, you may not have reached what you aimed for and regrets not cheating your way through it. Okay that’s a negative view, but you get what I mean. Your actions of the past will affect your reaction or mood towards a present or future outcome.
Why would regret be the second I’d write about? There are a lot of other things that’s worth talking about or rather converse about. There are a lot of other significant perspectives that we need to understand, but why regret?
Why? Well let’s say that the past affects your future. The past affects the change in your person, not necessarily physical or mental change, but emotional. I’ve talked about PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) once, and I’ve explained that a soldier was affected by that. He’s kept a secret, a secret that kills him. That’s regret. He regretted not able to tell anyone what happened in the battlefield. Soldiers often gets haunted of their times in the battlefield, nightmares are a different thing, but regret? Their regrets vary in every person. One might regret for even thinking of joining the army, and gets haunted by the cries of pain of deaths of friend and foe. Another one would regret for killing an enemy soldier when he could’ve just gave mercy and left him be. A higher ranked officer may even regret, but opposite to those I’ve mentioned. He might’ve regretted for not killing. He might’ve regretted for recruiting such merciful soldiers. Regrets vary in their own ways but these haunt them.
Basically these soldiers, they will think a lot about it and will often find themselves in a position where they should leave the past and live in agony of their regrets, and make fixes. Fixes don’t mean they go back to the battlefield. You cannot bring the dead back. But fixes like consulting their feelings. It is a common therapy, consulting, but there is one more thing you can do. It’s to share your feelings. Not in consulting, but by reaching out. They may write books, or blogs, or anything just to warn other people of the dangers of war. Of course, my examples are yet again too extreme and big scaled. Put yourself as a soldier, and the battlefield is your friendship. Your regret is that you could’ve saved your friendship instead of killing the relationship. See the similarities? Yes that’s what I mean. I have not thought long enough or deep enough about this to ever think of a… solution. In time there may be a solution, hopefully not as bad as amnesia or brain-wash, but a humane and reasonable solution where one can relieve oneself from the agony of regret-related-stress-or-agony.
