The Danger of Regret

A man that has taught me much in my early years as a teenager and I am proud to say is a beloved friend to this day, Benson Medina, has his own blog where he writes beautifully insightful and positive  pieces that are always exceptionally inspirational.  His posting he did for today seemed particularly fitting for the beginning of the New Year and he blessed me to go ahead and re-post it here.  You can read Benson's wit and wisdom on his blog Any Moment.  I promise this man's spirit and outlook on life are very infectious and are infused within the writing he graces us with his sharing.  I highly recommend taking a bit and perusing his writings there!   Happy New Year to all, and thanks to you, Benson, for being the person that you are!  I love you, bro!

The Danger of Regret

Guest Post by Benson Medina

It’s the last day of the year and I’m reflecting back over the events of 2010.  Our family has a picture calendar for 2010 so I’ve spent some time flipping through the months and thinking about what happened on certain dates.  All the real “highlights” have to do with family (my niece Anela placed in the Miss Kaua’i contest in February, my other niece Lindsey graduated from college in May, I saw my son Caine for the first time in a year in October, etc.) and relationships in my life.   Though there are events over the past year that could have turned out differently, I’m very careful not to take a negative perspective.
I don’t want to have regrets.

The problem with regrets is that it’s beginning of a very damaging mindset that can have very catastrophic consequences down the road.  Here’s a simple illustration that we can all relate to:  let’s say I applied for a job that I’m certain I’m going to get, but somehow I don’t get it.   I look at the situation with regret which opens the door to other negative emotions: fear, anger, resentment, loss of confidence, etc.   If I’m not able to shake those emotions off, then I start to constantly “ruminate” over the situation (ruminate means you have a tendency to obsess on negative events).   Beyond that, there’s guilt and shame waiting to crush my self-esteem into long-lasting, permanent pain which now affects every sector of my life.

You might think that example a bit extreme, but its a constant cycle that’s been playing itself out in our lives since we were children.  A lot of us have carried pain for decades over situations that we view as “regrettable.”  Our “higher self” really wants the “lesson” so we can go forward in a positive way, but “regret” blocks the lesson because it makes us focus on “what we didn’t get.”

I believe that our happiness as humans is connected to our ability to adapt to changing circumstances and to focus on the things that are present in our lives.  The Universe has already shown us that “whatever we focus on will expand” and that’s enough to make us very wary of how regret can seep into our thinking.  We also lose sight of the role pain plays as one of our greatest teachers because regret doesn’t allow us to embrace a negative experience as something potentially positive.

If worry is the negative use of our imagination, then regret is the negative use of our memory.   The New Year gives us a chance to focus on the life we want and not the life we didn’t get.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

My Greatest Teacher

A little while back I joined Facebook. I did so for the same reason that millions of other people signed up for an account. I wanted to try and get in touch with long lost friends from high school, from my Navy days, and to find friends I had made and carelessly lost track of as I uprooted my family multiple times by moving them all across our country while following a career.

Well, today I noticed that one of my old high school acquaintances with which I am befriended on Facebook had sent a message to a teacher of mine that I had way back in junior high school. This teacher was someone that I have thought about from time to time over the decades since I last saw him. He was someone that truly inspired me and helped change my life for the better.

I know that is supposedly what all teacher are theoretically supposed to do, but few seldom seem to measure up to that goal. Truthfully, I cannot even remember most of my high school teachers' names, let alone my junior high teachers'. But this man was different in many ways.
Ironically he taught a class that many people would consider fun but not necessarily life-changing. He taught drama class.

I don't even really recall how I ended up in drama class in my 7th grade year. I was painfully shy and while I was a good student, this class was going to be difficult for me. I had just lost my father after a long fight with cancer, and if anything I was becoming more withdrawn and closing into my protective shell.

Then came "the class". I don't recall all of the particular assignments but I do remember the process as taught by this fantastic teacher was to build confidence in acting through the process of becoming in touch with your own emotions and then being secure enough in your person to be able to draw upon those emotions as required for whatever part you were currently playing.

This teacher began to draw me out of my sorrow, out of my shell that first year. Much to my surprise, I signed up for his other drama courses the next year and then the next. As I grew in my self confidence and inner strength, Benson came to me and suggested that I actually try out for the school play. It was entitled "Up the Down Staircase" and to my horror and happiness, Benson cast me in a lead part as a young rebellious trouble making kid that basically was good inside.

The part was fun because the character was so different than the good kid I was at the time. I did well, and went out for future plays. Each part I played, I got a little bit better, a little bit less self-conscious, a little bit more confident in myself.

It even got to the point where I became an assistant to Benson for one of his beginning classes when I was a freshman. The class was small so he cast me as the fairy godmother in a version of Cinderella that the kids were doing in class. I was horrified at first, then decided to have fun with it. It was hard to believe in those three years how far I had come from the painfully shy and withdrawn kid I was.

Fast forward thirty years, and I look at the ease with which I can now communicate with others with my career, within my church, ... within my life! I have no qualms getting up and giving a talk to a group of people whom I do not know. I have that confidence in myself now, and when looking back where that came from, it is easy to point to the teacher of my junior high drama classes.

Its hard to believe that as an engineer, when I look back at my junior high schooling I find that indeed the most important life-altering class I took was taught by this inspirational man that had the wherewithal to either see some potential within me or perhaps just thought that he could possibly help some sad frightened boy discover the tools within to become a much more confident man someday.

Although I have not seen or spoken to Benson in so many decades, I have always considered the man one of the best teachers I ever had and more importantly a friend. I anxiously await his "confirming" my Facebook friendship request so that I can thank him for being the kind of person that he was, and evidently still is judging by his own blog, so many years ago.

I do not know, but I suspect that God knew the misery I was falling deeper into with my withdrawing from people. I further suspect He somehow steered me to that first drama class. He knew that a TEACHER and a good man was there to guide me at that point. My thanks to God and to Benson for that!