An Alphabet Of My Life: R

~ beetleypete

R=Regrets.

When you reach the milestone of 70, you must surely have a few regrets? I know I do.

I would have liked to have been better prepared for my first marriage, that’s for sure.

It would have been nice if my second marriage had worked out better too. But it didn’t, so hey-ho.

As much as I enjoyed my long service as an EMT, I wish that I had gone into that job years earlier, when I was 21. I seem to have wasted a lot of time on pointless, unrewarding jobs before deciding to do something useful. But I did earn a great deal of money during that time, so perhaps any regrets are tempered by that fact.

There is no point regretting not visiting America, or many of the other countries I never got to see. I could have gone to those but chose different places instead, when I had the time and money to do that. So, no regrets where that is concerned.

For all of my life, I have tried to be kind, and to do the right thing. But I do regret times when I could have tried harder to do that, in certain situations.

There are many things I do not regret.

Not having any children
Marrying for the third time.
Moving from London to Beetley.
Getting Ollie.
Leaving my EMT job for a role in the police.
Never contacting my dad after he left the family home, and refusing to go to see him when he was dying.
Starting a blog.

On balance, I think the non-regrets outweigh the real regrets. So I am ticking that box as a win!

42 thoughts on “An Alphabet Of My Life: R”

  1. Pingback: Life’s Alphabet – R | Stevie Turner

  9. Woulda Couda Shoulda is a potentially dangerous mental game best played tempered with kindness to ourselves. Wish I’d known this or that or seen this or that coming… We are now the product of our experiences. Regardless of pain or outcome, any education is worth whatever we paid for it.

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  11. It seems to me a life well spent. I believe this is true of most people who dedicate their lives to helping others. Unless you have dedication for service, you cannot survive it. We all have some regrets, but they are a waste of time since what’s done is done.

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  17. yes, I’d say the positives way outweigh the regrets. in looking back at my life, (I’ll be 65 tomorrow), I’ve come to believe that the great majority of people do the best the can at any given time and place, with the tools/skills/understandings they have of the world at that time

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