Prompt #3

3. What do you regret?

First off, I regret not being on the damn ball with this blog. This thing is super tight.

Next, I regret wasting so much of my life watching crappy cartoons when there are so much better, well drawn cartoons for me to be watching.

Lastly, I really regret how I treat people. It is a constant battle for me. I think that my mentality about social interaction needs to change, and swiftly, before people start forming strong opinions about me.
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I regret coming to IU. I don't have any real friends here. And I can't help out at home at a time when I know my mom most needs help.

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I regret the fact that my parents don't know or try to know the real me.

The more I do that they wouldn't do or don't understand the further I feel from them. It's gotten to the point that when I go home I feel like I have to pretend to be someone else. The more time I spend away from home the harder it gets to put on the daughter they "know".
I also regret that I let them affect me so much. I think it's been drilled into my brain that you family are the only people that matter in the end but I don't think that's true anymore. I ended a relationship with the only person I have ever truly loved and pretty much closed the door on him forever because my family didn't like him. I'm slowly starting to realize he and his family were more like a family than my own in many ways.
I'm afraid of my family and I regret this more than anything.

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I regret never being who I am. I regret denying who I really am for so long that I think I have lost touch with that person. I have buried it deep down so far that I can't even see it anymore. Or get any kind of sense who they were. I'm afraid that if I was to start being honest with myself I would have no clue where to start. I feel ashamed of who I really am and I have no idea why. I feel so amazingly disappointed in myself.

I am very optimistic person and can easily find hope in the idea that change will come in time. I can see hope for my friends. My family. Even my country. I feel that the idea of a 'future' is endless. People can change their ways. I'm so sympathetic with people in situations I often times find myself feeling sorry for a murderer I read about in the newspaper and have an utter amount of hope that they will soon be happy because they will understand their mistake and society will forgive them.

I'm a hopeless dreamer in that sense.

But I cannot for the life of me look twenty or even thirty years down the road look at my future life and see me acknowledging who I truly am. I see myself being lonely. Sad. Fake happy. I know when I'm supposed to smile. I know when I'm supposed to crack a joke. I know when I'm supposed to get people to like me.
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I have learned to try to live my life without regret, and I do that by being consciously aware of every choice I make, big or small. If I know I'm doing what I think is right at that moment, I won't regret my decision. Perhaps it will be the wrong decision, and perhaps the outcome will be unbearable, but I will learn from it, let it teach me. How can I regret making the best decision I know how? That doesn't mean there are things I wish didn't exist: feelings I wish I didn't have, choices I wish other people wouldn't have made, hardship I wish no one had to bear. But there are also some things I do indeed regret. I regret not seizing an opportunity because I was afraid of being vulnerable. I regret the way I've treated my family when they prove over and over how much they love and support me. I try to live my life as a student, not just academically, but socially, humanly. I learn from the people around me; I learn from my past; I learn from my feelings; I learn from nature, from animals, from friends, from lovers, from strangers. And I try to use all that learning to make myself not a "better person," but just a better me, working towards the best "me" I can become. So in truth, I live with very little regret. But regret is not the only cause of pain...

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I regret coming home for break. I scroll through my contacts and I don't know what's more depressing. The fact that there is no one on that list of people that I want to talk to... or no one on that list wants to talk to me.

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I regret the fact that I am not more self-confident. I don't speak my mind the way I want to. I feel I am constantly "letting things go", being walked on, or having my friendship and kind acts taken advantage of. I regret not feeling better about myself and who I am as a person.

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I regret that I make so many important decisions based on guilt or anticipated guilt.

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