It was with a feeling of utter horror that I realized April has almost slipped through my greasy clutches without my even batting an eyelid. More than the frighteningly close and real prospect of exams (beginning on the 28th...) I was worried by the fact that I was yet to post an April entry. As I endeavour to update at least once a month this was a very serious personal issue for me. So, to commemorate the fact that I very nearly had to add one more regret to my "List of Regrets" (a purely conceptual text invented entirely for the purpose of imagery and with no physical manifestation in the literary world) I present, for your reading pleasure, to satisfy your Blog lust, to sate your endless thirst for insightful mono-discussions, an "In Lamb We Trust" special on REGRET...
We all have regrets. Many harbour regrets of such intense bitterness that they would RIP THE SKIN FROM THE VERY BONES OF THE REST OF US! I for one am thankful that my regrets are, by and large, ones which can be brought up in a humorous manner in a comfortable environment: self-deprecating tales of opportunities gone by, whimsical what-ifs that do little to taint the state of relative satisfaction and contentment in which I currently exist and which refrain from the bloody removal of any part of others' bodies. Sometimes I regret having never shown an interest in sport. As a result I am entirely unable to participate in eight out of ten all-male conversations. This regret does not last long though. The drivel people come out with talking about sport is ridiculous, and the unforgivably widespread habit of including one's self in the victories of talented athletes can actually induce cringes in the most obscure and deeply nestled of my internal organs: "It was close, but we eventually won on penalties". "We were down until the last quarter but then we pulled it together and trounced them".
No. You. Didn't.
YOU watched all this on a television hundreds if not thousands of miles away, drinking lager and eating crisps. Yet somehow the efforts of a group of men with whom you share no personal relationship give you a feeling of achievement and satisfaction. If your football team, or should I say, the football team you support or follow, is playing you have about as much part in the outcome as in a coin toss or a roulette table.
But in fairness to these people, I just can't get that worked up over sport. Certainly it can be thrilling, but for me this is just because I like seeing people who are good at what they do, exceptional at what they do really. It's rather like a tense scene in a film; I have nothing riding on the outcome but my heart still beats that little bit faster.
Anyroad. I was trying to tackle the subject of regret! I must learn to crack the whip with greater authority to encourage my brain to stay on topic, instead of rambling away as nonsensically as a late night review show guest.
My personal opinion on regret is fairly simple. I believe that when confronted with the question "Do you have any regrets?", "Have you any regrets?" or even "Would you do anything differently if you had the chance?" you should do the following:
Consider whether or not you are happy with your life at that moment. A seemingly soullessly logical and mathematical but effective method of doing this is to use a small scale Q.L.I. or Quality of Life Index. Basically there are five categories which you should consider individually:
1. Friendships
2. Family
3. Relationships (with people you find pretty groovy)
4. Career/Job/School etc.
5. Personal Health
Normal people will find it sufficient to merely label these categories as "good" or "bad" and look at the good:bad ratio but if the idea of graphs, pie-charts, means, ranges and informed application of statistics makes you tingle below deck then you can maybe give each a rating from 1 to 10(or 1 to 100 or 0.00 to 1.00) and then calculate your average. Bare in mind that answering questions about regrets with figures is a sure sign that your scores in at least 3 of the above categories are below par. Unless the person asking you is the human resources manager of a large German manufacturing plant (Germans do not reproduce conventionally...), in which case figures are all they will understand, as the subtleties of human emotion dance outwith the not inconsiderable range of their intellectual talons.
In my opinion, if you are pleased with your result then you should have no serious regrets. After all, our existences are defined not only by our successes and our timely wisdom. We are moulded as much by the fumbling hands of blind folly and icy woe as by the delicate craftsmanship of fair fortune and sound judgement. Wherever you are now, whatever state of affairs you are embroiled in, it is as it is because of everything that has happened to you. I hold my hands up in surrender to the fact that I have made some inconceivably poor choices myself. Not only this but I have insisted on following them through with implacable stubbornness. Of course, following through has messy consequences, and I repeatedly and consistently ignored any opportunity to clean up, struggling on through the discomfort of my (emotionally) soiled underwear despite offers of (emotionally) clean pairs from friends and loved ones.
Do I regret this?
Would I, given the opportunity, fix the mistakes I made?
Would I hell! The older, wiser wretch writing this has dedicated many a troubled hour to contemplation and pontification on the subject and I can safely say that I would not be the perfectly rounded individual I am now without this valuable life experience! Yes, I regret the short term results. Yes, it may well be that I would be even happier now had I made better decisions. But this is all speculation, and you can't define yourself by speculation.
There are aspects of my life which could be better. Who among us is honestly unable to say that. There are no aspects of my life which NEED to be better though.
This is important.
So for the sake of argument (if it can be defined as argument...which I'm not sure it can...) let's look at my Q.L.I. (non anal version)...
1. Friendships: Frankly, anyone complaining in my position...well, let's just say I would applaud in the wake of their grisly death.
2. Family: Much the same as above. My brother owes me some money but...I'm just saying.
3. Relationships: If I have learned anything it is not to place a great deal of importance on this if it is not going well. In my case, we shall make our swift exit to...
4. Career/Job/School etc. : I may be terrible at Swedish, but I'm a dab hand at the old English Literature lark. Summer employment beckons but two years of supermarket work have made me adept at combating the steady decay of my soul and self-worth.
5. Personal Health: I'm in better physical shape than I give myself credit for (although this can still be accurately defined as abysmal...) and the huge quantities of alcohol I ingest keep any foreign bacteria well at bay. The alcoholism is a problem for another day...
So, as you can see, there is nothing there which hampers my enjoyment of life. There is plenty to enhance it, and improvements are entirely welcome, but not necessary. Had I no friends, a horrible family, were I five times divorced and alone and angry at forty-three, unemployed with the work qualities of an anthropomorphic bogey or slowly succumbing to depression or radiation poisoning then I would have regrets. SERIOUS regrets. Regrets the cause of which would have ripped the foundations from beneath my potentially solid and pleasing life.
This is not the case. Fortunately.
I live with many regrets. Yet simultaneously and resultantly I have many things at which I can poke fun, and also an increasingly promising reservoir of possibility for the future. I never learned to play the piano for example, engrossing myself instead in the world of drums, harmonicas and acoustic guitars, but I suppose it's never too late. I admit I would quite like to understand football, rugby and cricket, but there is equal time for these.
One day I want to be able to look back on my life, sitting beside the fire, pipe in hand, comfortable Irish thorn-proof and baggy corduroys, Glenn Miller playing in the background (*cough* at the age of twenty *cough*) and realise that I have had a pretty good life. I want to live and then to die fully basked in the warm realisation that I refused to be dogged by regrets, that I stoically moved forwards, with due respect and new lessons for and from past mistakes but using them for the benefit and enhancement of my present and future rather than for the torturous detrement of my past.
After all, they say hindsight is 20:20...but it will seriously damage your "Personal Health" rating if you walk onto a busy road while indulging in it.
Yours without regret for the hour I spent writing this,
Jamie
P.S. My thanks to Nicky, from whom I shamelessly stole my Q.L.I. which, more or less, was the backbone of this month's entry. High fives all round Nicky!
We all have regrets. Many harbour regrets of such intense bitterness that they would RIP THE SKIN FROM THE VERY BONES OF THE REST OF US! I for one am thankful that my regrets are, by and large, ones which can be brought up in a humorous manner in a comfortable environment: self-deprecating tales of opportunities gone by, whimsical what-ifs that do little to taint the state of relative satisfaction and contentment in which I currently exist and which refrain from the bloody removal of any part of others' bodies. Sometimes I regret having never shown an interest in sport. As a result I am entirely unable to participate in eight out of ten all-male conversations. This regret does not last long though. The drivel people come out with talking about sport is ridiculous, and the unforgivably widespread habit of including one's self in the victories of talented athletes can actually induce cringes in the most obscure and deeply nestled of my internal organs: "It was close, but we eventually won on penalties". "We were down until the last quarter but then we pulled it together and trounced them".
No. You. Didn't.
YOU watched all this on a television hundreds if not thousands of miles away, drinking lager and eating crisps. Yet somehow the efforts of a group of men with whom you share no personal relationship give you a feeling of achievement and satisfaction. If your football team, or should I say, the football team you support or follow, is playing you have about as much part in the outcome as in a coin toss or a roulette table.
But in fairness to these people, I just can't get that worked up over sport. Certainly it can be thrilling, but for me this is just because I like seeing people who are good at what they do, exceptional at what they do really. It's rather like a tense scene in a film; I have nothing riding on the outcome but my heart still beats that little bit faster.
Anyroad. I was trying to tackle the subject of regret! I must learn to crack the whip with greater authority to encourage my brain to stay on topic, instead of rambling away as nonsensically as a late night review show guest.
My personal opinion on regret is fairly simple. I believe that when confronted with the question "Do you have any regrets?", "Have you any regrets?" or even "Would you do anything differently if you had the chance?" you should do the following:
Consider whether or not you are happy with your life at that moment. A seemingly soullessly logical and mathematical but effective method of doing this is to use a small scale Q.L.I. or Quality of Life Index. Basically there are five categories which you should consider individually:
1. Friendships
2. Family
3. Relationships (with people you find pretty groovy)
4. Career/Job/School etc.
5. Personal Health
Normal people will find it sufficient to merely label these categories as "good" or "bad" and look at the good:bad ratio but if the idea of graphs, pie-charts, means, ranges and informed application of statistics makes you tingle below deck then you can maybe give each a rating from 1 to 10(or 1 to 100 or 0.00 to 1.00) and then calculate your average. Bare in mind that answering questions about regrets with figures is a sure sign that your scores in at least 3 of the above categories are below par. Unless the person asking you is the human resources manager of a large German manufacturing plant (Germans do not reproduce conventionally...), in which case figures are all they will understand, as the subtleties of human emotion dance outwith the not inconsiderable range of their intellectual talons.
In my opinion, if you are pleased with your result then you should have no serious regrets. After all, our existences are defined not only by our successes and our timely wisdom. We are moulded as much by the fumbling hands of blind folly and icy woe as by the delicate craftsmanship of fair fortune and sound judgement. Wherever you are now, whatever state of affairs you are embroiled in, it is as it is because of everything that has happened to you. I hold my hands up in surrender to the fact that I have made some inconceivably poor choices myself. Not only this but I have insisted on following them through with implacable stubbornness. Of course, following through has messy consequences, and I repeatedly and consistently ignored any opportunity to clean up, struggling on through the discomfort of my (emotionally) soiled underwear despite offers of (emotionally) clean pairs from friends and loved ones.
Do I regret this?
Would I, given the opportunity, fix the mistakes I made?
Would I hell! The older, wiser wretch writing this has dedicated many a troubled hour to contemplation and pontification on the subject and I can safely say that I would not be the perfectly rounded individual I am now without this valuable life experience! Yes, I regret the short term results. Yes, it may well be that I would be even happier now had I made better decisions. But this is all speculation, and you can't define yourself by speculation.
There are aspects of my life which could be better. Who among us is honestly unable to say that. There are no aspects of my life which NEED to be better though.
This is important.
So for the sake of argument (if it can be defined as argument...which I'm not sure it can...) let's look at my Q.L.I. (non anal version)...
1. Friendships: Frankly, anyone complaining in my position...well, let's just say I would applaud in the wake of their grisly death.
2. Family: Much the same as above. My brother owes me some money but...I'm just saying.
3. Relationships: If I have learned anything it is not to place a great deal of importance on this if it is not going well. In my case, we shall make our swift exit to...
4. Career/Job/School etc. : I may be terrible at Swedish, but I'm a dab hand at the old English Literature lark. Summer employment beckons but two years of supermarket work have made me adept at combating the steady decay of my soul and self-worth.
5. Personal Health: I'm in better physical shape than I give myself credit for (although this can still be accurately defined as abysmal...) and the huge quantities of alcohol I ingest keep any foreign bacteria well at bay. The alcoholism is a problem for another day...
So, as you can see, there is nothing there which hampers my enjoyment of life. There is plenty to enhance it, and improvements are entirely welcome, but not necessary. Had I no friends, a horrible family, were I five times divorced and alone and angry at forty-three, unemployed with the work qualities of an anthropomorphic bogey or slowly succumbing to depression or radiation poisoning then I would have regrets. SERIOUS regrets. Regrets the cause of which would have ripped the foundations from beneath my potentially solid and pleasing life.
This is not the case. Fortunately.
I live with many regrets. Yet simultaneously and resultantly I have many things at which I can poke fun, and also an increasingly promising reservoir of possibility for the future. I never learned to play the piano for example, engrossing myself instead in the world of drums, harmonicas and acoustic guitars, but I suppose it's never too late. I admit I would quite like to understand football, rugby and cricket, but there is equal time for these.
One day I want to be able to look back on my life, sitting beside the fire, pipe in hand, comfortable Irish thorn-proof and baggy corduroys, Glenn Miller playing in the background (*cough* at the age of twenty *cough*) and realise that I have had a pretty good life. I want to live and then to die fully basked in the warm realisation that I refused to be dogged by regrets, that I stoically moved forwards, with due respect and new lessons for and from past mistakes but using them for the benefit and enhancement of my present and future rather than for the torturous detrement of my past.
After all, they say hindsight is 20:20...but it will seriously damage your "Personal Health" rating if you walk onto a busy road while indulging in it.
Yours without regret for the hour I spent writing this,
Jamie
P.S. My thanks to Nicky, from whom I shamelessly stole my Q.L.I. which, more or less, was the backbone of this month's entry. High fives all round Nicky!
2 comments:
Genuinely ammusing, well structured and a fair use of bold.
I thoroughly enjoyed it Jamie.
LOL U GHot eXXamz U eDinbragh cUNt!
Your blog is bloody brilliant!
lots of loaf,
AC
x
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