Regrets and Hopes - Living in the Present (Perspectives)

The idea behind this series called Perspectives is explained in a hub published by MickeySr:

• Perspectives: An Introduction
  What we think and how we feel about things is defined, not by the things themselves, but by our perspective of things. Everything that comes before us is filtered through our perception of things...

This theme - Regrets and Hope - supplied by the team for January 2013 - immediately tried to find a place in my personal folders for Past, Future and Present.

Without any doubts I associate regrets with the Past and Hope with the Future, for I cannot regret something I have not yet committed or experienced and I cannot have any hope for anything that is over and done.

Although Regrets is all about the Past and Hope is all about the Future, we actually do this only in the Present. We THINK in the present... at this moment. And we keep on thinking. Test your thoughts!

• "Remember that awful experience with Jim the Punk? If only I had listened to my gut feeling, or at least to my friends who warned me against people like him...."
• "Remember that wonderful holiday in Europe? That should have lasted at least one more week. Why was my tour so pathetically planned?"
• "Remember when I smoke a cigarette for the first time? Now that was fun. But such a big mistake..."
• "Remember how much fun I had with my children. But this and that I could have handled better."

Regretting is an automatic mental response when we dwell on the past. We will always find something to regret, as we would always find dust and dirt and germs in the storerooms of our homes. Any cleaner/organizer will admit that the more they focus on cleaning and organizing, the more things they see in need of cleaning and organizing.

Reviewing one's past from time to time is sometimes necessary, like cleaning a dusty and untidy attic. But spending too much time doing this, means using precious time meant for living in the Present and for creating beautiful memories that might cover all regrettable memories. The more we dwell in the past - as in a dusty attic - the more reasons for regret we discover.

• "Jenny has cancer. I hope she will recover soon."
• "My house is too hot during summer. I need an air-conditioner. I hope to find money to buy one."
• "I am going to publish this hub now. I hope many will take the time to read it, and I hope everybody will get my perceptive on regrets and hope."

I have seen people on their deathbed still hoping for a miracle.

I've seen people who were able to live for many more years died just because they've lost Hope.

Giving up Hope, is passing one's power on to Death. Death does not only kill bodies of flesh and blood, but while we are still breathing, it kills our dreams, aspirations, emotions, and all that was once alive.

So yes, although Regrets is about the past and Hope is about the future, it is something we DO in the present.

I am an advocate of Presentism (the philosophy of time.)

According to this philosophical doctrine events and entities that are wholly past or wholly future do not exist at all.

"Everything past is unreal, everything future is unreal, everything imagined, absent, mental... is unreal... Ultimately real is only the present moment of physical efficiency...." Fyodor Shcherbatskoy.

So by regretting whatever was in the past (yesterday and all the days before), and hoping for whatever lies in the future (tomorrow and all the days ahead), we spend precious time and energy on something that does not exist, and we waste the time we have to our disposal to make the best of our day, our gift, our present.

I have learned the hard way to distinguish between Negative and Positive activities to be done in the Present.

Regretting is a negative activity.....

until it becomes a resolution. By making a serious decision to never again repeat whatever instigated regrets, we change regrets into Hope.

• "I hope I will get a chance to make amends for those regrettable statements of mine."
• "I hope I will be stronger and wiser when I ever again find myself in the same kind of situation I had handled so terribly wrong."

Hoping is a positive activity.

Surely nobody doubt the power of hope and everybody treasures hope for the best.

© MartieCoetser

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Registered :: 2013-01-15 31:22:33
Title :: Perspectives: Regrets and Hopes: Living in the Present
Category :: Article Hub
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