If you never make a mistake, you aren’t trying hard enough.
The thing about regrets is that it’s a waste of your life force and energy. The best way to get over your regrets is to embrace your choices. You were not a child when you made those choices, you were a young adult and likely aware that all choices come with consequences. You were not forced by circumstance, no one else’s action/reactions made you choose this or that. You learned something from each of those experiences, I’d wager. Your task is to identify the lesson, hold tight to that, and move forward. If the lesson is only to not miss the next opportunity, it’s enough.
Play, “Shoulda, woulda, coulda…”, all day long, if you wish, it’s your choice. But it never leads to happiness or contentment. Challenge yourself! Do something daring! Something that, if someone told you they’d just done it, you’d think, “Wow! That’s very cool!” A little adventure in life is sometimes just the thing to wake us up and make us look forward, with wonder, at what next, rather than waste our time looking back with regret.
I read or heard a little while back that you keep feeling the regret until you learn the lesson you were supposed to learn from that experience (it was probably here on the Dope that I read it).
Are you able to forgive other people’s mistakes? If not, that’s the place to start, I think.
Once you learn how to let go of disappointment or resentment toward others learn to treat yourself with at least as much patience and kindness.
Time will help and the resolution will work better if you have an attitude of willingness. Do you think you must always excell? Is there any unrealistic element of self- superiority in that? Do you beat yourself up psychologically for what you see as failure? Is this something you learned as a child? Do you see any ways it may be standing in the way of achieving or of obtaining satisfaction?
At this point it sounds like you are beating your head against the wall about something that’s impossible to change. Not much sense in that.
But you can reframe your past. Find the positives that were there and dwell on them, the lessons you’ve learned that will make you more effective in the future. It’s certainly a possibility that you weren’t ready at that time in your life to do things the way that you wanted to.
I used to play a form of that game. But then I realized that everyone has problems. If you would have ended up with one of those girls, what makes you think you would have been happy? Do you think All-Stars don’t have problems? For all you know, going in any one of those directions may have left you unhappier than you are right now.
All you can do in life is move forward. What’s done is done. So quit looking backward and start figuring out your here and now. Otherwise, in 5 years you’re going to look back at this point in your life and say “Why didn’t I get over things? Why did I let myself get in my own way like that? I sure wish I woulda… [fill in the blank].” So start working today to avoid tomorrow’s regrets. At the end of the day, that’s the only thing you have control over.
Christ, I’m seventy; I’m a recovering drug addict, I have damn little money, no investments, Medicare only, and the love of my life recently divorced me. I still think things will work out for me, if I’m more diligent than I have been. I’m sure they’ll do the same for you.
It’s just like a lingering gap in my life. They should have been the best years of my life and instead I just fucked it all up. For someone up there who said being an All-American was unrealistic, sorry, but you’re wrong. I beat several other AA’s in my career but when I had my chance I just blew it. Didn’t perform to my potential and on top of that I really have no one to blame but myself. I did everything I could as far as preparing myself physically but I wouldn’t stop smoking weed. I know it sounds odd but I was in good enough shape to do both, but it was a mental thing as far as the weed goes that held me back. Like not being 100% committed.
As far as the girls go, they were dream girls, but I never had more than a fling with one of them. In fact, I acted like a desperate fuck and let her lead me on for two years while she fucked one of my former friends.
The other girl was gorgeous and we were friends but nothing more. It’s just sad because I know she liked me and I could have made it happen but I never even fucking tried. She lived next door to me in my apartment complex and I never went to visit her once because I was too chicken-shit.
Maybe that’s the whole point of it. I just feel like I didn’t give my all, made mistakes when I should have known better and just a bunch of other things.
Everyone says you don’t know how it would have worked out. I can say with absolute certainty life would have been better if I had been AA. I’d say with about 99% certainty life would be better, I would be a different better person if it had worked out with one of them.
I know this is like a pity-party and for the most part i get along. I still have the same friends from my team. Sometimes I wonder how they even like me for all the stupid shit I’ve done. But literally these three things cross my mind every single day. Usually in the morning when I wake up and at night before I go to sleep. But now it’s something that simply can’t be changed. I just feel like damaged goods, and my reputation is shot. It fucking sucks. Thanks for the comments and advice, it really is helpful. Just how do you get over this kind of stuff?
(bolding mine)
Honestly? Do you want the honest truth? By growing up. By getting out of your fantasy world, learning from your mistakes, and using what you’ve learned to move on.
Let’s begin . . .
and
Sorry, but no. The idea that your high school/college years are supposed to be your best years is just a myth. Think about it: Are you really telling me that your idea of a great, well-lived life involves peaking at 22? To hell with that! I’d rather not even play sports or go to college than spend the last 50+ years of my life reliving past glories.
Brother, please!! It doesn’t sound odd. It sounds impossible. You’ve already had two or three posters who know the score tell you that getting those kinds of honors is out of the realm of possibility for just about everyone, even starters, and that was before you let slip that you toked up during the season. You didn’t have what it took to make AA. Period. End of. At that level of play, it’s as much of a psychological game as physical, and you just didn’t have the discipline to start with. At that point, it doesn’t even matter whether or not you got high. Your telling us that you could have made AA if only it weren’t for all that weed is like my telling you I could have won the Nobel Prize for physics if only it weren’t for all that math. You. Didn’t. Have. A. Prayer!! With or without the weed. Accept it. Move on.
Why do you think you’re any different than anyone here? That’s all of us, Scotty. Anybody who has played the game has gone through that. There are a lucky few who have managed to avoid that stage, but they are so few and far between that they’re more like a club. A very small club with passwords and secret handshakes like the Masons, except that I didn’t spend eight and a half years of my life with a boner wishing I were in the Masons.
And if you were 80 years old in a nursing home, you’d have reason to complain. Somehow, I don’t think you’ve lived quite enough of your life to be really sad about this. Again, this is everyone. We all could have done better. We’ve all fallen short. Everyone fails in their own way. Even the AA’s.
Get off the California Cabbage and do something different. Just go out and . . . find the next part of your life. That’s all any of us can do.
I have a story about regrets. It’s a little “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” But it is true.
I read about a guy who collected playing cards he found on the ground. After a lifetime of work, he managed to assemble a deck. I was travelling when I read this, and it seemed like a cool idea. Imagine a deck assembled from your world travels! Almost immediately, I saw a card on the side of the road, and went to pick it up.
But as I bent down, I remembered all the places I had been where I hadn’t picked up cards. I’m sure I could have found cards when I was in Rome as a teenager…and what about all my college years…That trip to Mexico…the weight of all the time I’d wasted not picking up cards was overwhelming. It made it all seem fruitless, just brought to mind missed opportunities, and made the whole thing kind of sad. I felt like it was just too late to get started. I abandon the project right then and there.
For years, whenever I was travelling and saw a card on the ground. It’d make me feel sad. When I’d pass a card in Delhi or Guatemala City, or whenever, I’d feel that small sense of regret. I’d think “If only I had started collecting cards years ago…”
Until one day on the road I saw a card, I realized “Damn, I’ve sure been a lot of places since I read that first article! I had no idea the crazy places I’d go!” Suddenly, the cards stopped looking like the sadness of missed opportunity, but rather as being more about abundance and choice. Sure, I hadn’t collected the cards. But I’d done tons of other stuff. Really cool stuff. Sure, it may still seem too late to start collecting the cards now, but life didn’t seem to care. Life just kept going. And it will keep going. And I’ve learned to truth that it will take me places that I don’t expect.
To this day, whenever I see a card on the road I smile, take a moment to think of the places I’ve been, and give a little thanks for the choices I’ve had in my life. I don’t have the collection of cards in my hands, but they are in my heart.
How exactly would becoming an All-American have changed your life? Would it have made you more money, made you smarter or faster or kinder or more popular? Would it have changed anything about you, or the way the rest of the world reacts to you? Could you have earned a living wrestling that you can’t earn now because you don’t have that title? You do know that for 99% of the world, those words mean absolutely nothing about how we react to a person. If my boss told me tomorrow she was an All-American anything, it would not change one bit how I feel about her or react to her. I wouldn’t respect her any more or any less. It might be just an interesting blip in her history. But all that high school stuff is just history.
Little do you know that, if you had won that title, it would have led you into a match where your opponent would have had a raging case of herpes gladiatorum. If things had turned out differentlly, you would spent the rest of your life covered in herpes lesions.
And those two girls? They both had genital herpes.
Now you can feel better knowing that what you perceived as failures were really your guardian angel trying to protect you from herpes. You’re welcome.
(I’m being ridiculous here, but my point is actually that you never really know what unforeseen consequences might have come about if things had been different. You just don’t know, a different outcome could have set off a chain of events that would take your life in a worse direction).
Time will ultimately heal the girl issues, but here’s my .02:
I think you’re confusing “hot girl” with “dream girl.” A girl that leads you on while fucking one of your mates isn’t a “dream girl.” She’s a hot girl you hooked up with once but who doesn’t like you nearly as much as she likes your friend. You didn’t “blow” anything here because you never had a chance anyway. You had a fling, she wasn’t that into you, end of story. It sucks but it happens to everyone. It’s not your fault, you can’t make someone like you, other fish in the sea, etc.
That’s a crappy feeling, but again it’s an experience most people have had. The way to get over this is by learning from it. When the thought of regret enters your mind, say to yourself “I sure learned my lesson. Next time I’m in that situation, I’m going to man up and ask her out.” That way you’re looking towards the future, which is still (somewhat at least) under your control.
I think you’re confusing the title “All American” with the traits that title embodies. I suspect you don’t actually think that merely having an NCAA finals medal would somehow solve your problems. It’s the qualities that medal represents (passion, drive, determination, strong work ethic, keeping your head under pressure) that would make your life better. But you don’t need the medal to have those qualities.
Your best bet for getting over these regrets is to simply realize them for what they are: lessons that will let you live a more fulfilling life from hear on out. Next time you’re pretty sure that hottie from apt. 4C is into you, you can be sure you’ll find the balls to tell her how you feel.
Next time you’re in a high stakes situation that requires focus and hard work, you’ll put your nose to the grindstone and produce. Because you’ll remember how shitty you felt when you didn’t.
Yeah lavenderviolet too bad I already have herpes gladatorium lol…
So basically everyones advice is to just learn from it. I get that and I have. It’s just the simple fact that I seem to dwell on it so much. I honestly have dreams about one of three pretty regularly. Sometimes I’ll dream I’m wrestling again and I’ll think “I’m not missing out this time.”. Then I’ll wake up and it’s like “shit”.
But yeah I’ve learned from it but like I said it feels like there is a gap there and nothing to really fill it. I can’t seem to think “oh well” and get over it.
Oh and whoever thinks I couldn’t have been AA, sorry, but again you’re wrong. I beat several all-Americans and one national runner-up. So take it for what it is but trust me I was right there.
Well, as Catwhisperer alluded to, almost always when we’ve taken the life lesson, still have regret, and can’t seem to find resolution, the difficulty is with ourselves.
Experience has taught me, when I’m feeling unresolved about something I feel I should be able to move past, that it’s because there is something I’m not taking ownership of. For most people it’s, almost always, an ego thing. Perception is everything when it comes to our egos, my friend.
The difference between owning, that you weren’t good enough to be AA, not having what it took to make it as a professional athlete (Maturity, focus, discipline, stability, etc.) and saying, “I smoked too much pot, didn’t perform to my peak, but I could have been a contender!”, is all about ownership, and ego, pretty clearly.
As for the girl stuff, seeking true love is a fool’s journey. The real journey is to seek to be worthy of true love. Beating yourself up over the past is just self absorption dressed up in different clothes. You can look forward or backward in life. Which do you think will steer you where you want to be?
This is absolutely true. You keep on keeping on, get a whole bunch more experiences under your belt, get some maturity, do some astounding things, make some spectacular mistakes, and all of a sudden you get something incredibly valuable that you don’t have yet - perspective.
As I said before, my husband has coached or played in the same league as major league baseball players, and the people who make it to the show have one thing in common - they start with ungodly amounts of natural talent, and then they do ungodly amounts of work to make the most of those natural talents. Can you honestly say that you did ungodly amounts of work to make becoming an All American (whatever the hell that is) come to fruition?
One thing that jumps out at me from your additional posts, Scotty, is that you might be thinking that life is like a movie. It isn’t. It’s just life. Your life sounds pretty normal to me, frankly.
To your question – Yes I can. And for the most part it is but these seemingly little things continuously dig and I relive the experiences over and over. And there’s no hope for any of it, ever. So it makes no sense but still I continue to dwell on it. I guess I went through a lot in these periods and just have trouble letting go. What’s worse I still continue to make the same mistakes I did in the past. This all happened on a 2 year period and it’s been about two years since.
And All-American for me was placing in the top 8 at nationals for division II
As another wrestler, just letting people in this thread know that if you beat other AAs, you have the ability to be AA yourself. It’s not like sumo where the grand champion might lose to a lesser guy if he happens to trip a little bit. National champions don’t lose matches to just anyone.
Join the club, man. There are so many things I regret from the past. We all have a few and any one who says otherwise is almost certainly lying. However, when it comes down to it the past isn’t real. It has ceased to exist. Thinking about it will not change it. The only part of time that’s in your control is the present.
Three? Wait another 10-15 years, you’ll have a filing system for them.
Mine:
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Stupid things I Did That Almost Killed Me or Someone else
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Bad decisions I made that sabotaged my dreams
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Ways I took advantage of family and friends or otherwise treated them badly
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Ways I treated the women in my life badly
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Ways I treated my Children Badly
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Ways I treated my Wife Badly
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Ways I Think I Disappointed My Parents Even if I really didn’t
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Things I Wanted To Do With My Father But Didn’t Get a Chance Because I Waited Too Long
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Other things I things I procrastinated on until it was too late
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Things I’m Lucky I’m Not In Jail For
Any of the above are easily accessible if I need some gristle to chew. Ideally these things will become fewer and farther between as I grow and learn but I always manage to surpise myself.