how To Live without Regret

As you traverse through the hazardous regions of Life, you will meet several people. Some will be significant, others less so (some even lesser than less so), and they will all present you with questions - who you are and where you're from and what you believe - so they can come to know you. So you can come to know yourself. There's one question in particular that will come up time and time again, and you need to be ready for it. Someone, at some point in your life, is going to ask you "What's your most embarrassing moment?"

I honestly don't know why they do this.

I just know it happens.

De vez en cuando.

My response to these inquiries is always the same: "I really can't think of an embarrassing moement: I've repressed those memories."
This response works infallibly well for two reasons: 1)people always laugh (especially this one time when I said it to a student who was studying psychology - he was still chuckling about it hours later. I'm pretty sure he thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard in his life...or at least the funniest thing he had heard that day) and 2)they stop prodding you for personal stories of public humiliation.

It's a great response. I'm very proud of myself for coming up with it, and others tend to think I'm terribly clever for authoring it. But there's a secret to it. I didn't have to use an iota of imagination or wit to come up with it because...

...it's true.

I honestly can't remember my embarrassing moments. Or at least, not very well. Every time I try to recreate them in my memory, I get blocked. Literally black-out blocked. They are, by the very definition of the word, repressed.

If you are one of the few who happened to be present during one of my "most embarrassing moments" please, PLEASE, keep it to yourself. I'm happy in my repressed state of being right now, and I've heard it can be quite painful and traumatic to dredge up a repressed memory. Probably oughtn't to be attempted outside of the presence of a professional. O.o

I try to live my life in such a way that I will regret as little as possible. Everyone will have regret, I'm not trying to avoid it altogether, just limit it. Example:

"Should I do/not do this?"
"Well, would you regret doing/not doing this?"
"Yes/No."
"You have your answer then."

I've wondered if my repression of embarrassing moments is perhaps slightly unhealthy, but following my no-regret logic I conclude that if I can't remember the event, then I couldn't possibly regret said event. One cannot regret an experience if, as far as one knows, the experience never happened. If the goal is to live with as little regret as possible, then let's leave those moments unremembered.

So now you know my quick and easy recipe for living without regret. And you don't even have to bother with any of that complicated "self-acceptance" or "making peace with the world" junk.

You're welcome.