A young grasshopper recently asked me to impart some advice upon her. In my sage senior wisdom, I told her not to live without regrets, but rather learn to be okay with your regrets, which surprised me since that had literally never occurred to me ever before. But I went with it, I stand by it, and honestly, I am giving myself a beijinho no ombro (kiss on the shoulder, Brazilian equivalent to patting yourself on the back – it is superiorly more fabulous) for going off the cuff.
If memory is a photograph you made in Photo I (like you are soooo proud of the framing, composition, b/w contrast and developing everything on your own for the first time), then regret is like letting it erode in a bath of corrosive chemicals that eat away at the image until all that remains is a poor facsimile of something that does not live up to its potential. Regret distorts the present, transforming it into a weird landscape of missed connections and opportunities, making us blind to present potentials and future possibilities.
But how can anyone not have regrets? “No regretz” sets up an impossible standard. My daily regrets fluctuate between 3-20, depending on things like how many times I hit snooze on my alarm that morning, how existentially invalidated I feel about adulthood and how my stomach feels after Diana salads (usually not good). The ever-spinning carousel of self-doubt that runs on “coulda-shoulda-woulda” is not self-sustaining, although it is self-perpetuating. Most days, we can sweat the small stuff but I think addressing this potentially dangerous thought is crucial before graduation so we don’t end up burning our Liberal Arts B.A.’s in a frenzied “what the hell am I doing with my life” fit the following December (“THE PATRIARCHY MADE ME DO IT!!”).
My friend Blair*, for instance, who graduated last year, called me to vent about a mutual friend, Serena, who had landed a glamorous job in San Francisco. Blair is currently stationed in Baton Rouge, confessed her jealousy and began expressing doubt about her commitment to City Year. I told Blair to shape the fuck up. Realistically, she didn’t have the skills to entertain other options: she can’t work for a tech company since she doesn’t know how to code, she can’t teach English abroad since she doesn’t speak another language, she can’t make big money as a financial advisor since she majored in art. The tough love tactic was not what she wanted to hear, nor did it really address her concerns (sorry B). However, by comparing these imaginative alternatives – though a reality for some of our friends– to her situation, B was debasing everything that she had accomplished and aspired to do.
On a more personal note, lately I have spent a hefty amount of time regretting not joining more clubs, which I believed would’ve expanded social circle and helped me discover my ~*passion*~. In blindly focusing in on groups I didn’t join, I forgot the importance of the ones I did. Since sophomore year, I have been involved with two wonderful clubs that provided me a platform to write and shape my voice. That has been indispensible to my long term writing goals. Her Campus supported me as I have honed my writing skills over the years and given me the confidence to hand my resume over to more prominent platforms.
Regret can disappear over time as we make sense of them, but we can’t say we don’t have regrets unless we have initially acknowledged the regret. Basically we have to be in a constant state of reassessing ourselves, our actions and choices, past and present, while concomitantly reckoning with our future expectations, ambitions and desires. It’s exhausting and produces all the feels. But if we didn’t do it, would we be able to extract meaning from our experiences?
* Names have not been changed – xoxo, GG
*image via quadruplez.com