I'm still at the office (yes I have a normal 9 to 5 office job!! Still working on generating that passive income ;)), just about getting ready to leave for the day and start my weekend, but decided to first add another blog entry to my site. It's quite funny how simply coming up with something to write about can be the hardest part of a new blog entry for me!

I'm on a bit of a mission to be an all round happier person these days so whenever I get the chance to think about something willingly my mind always jumps to thoughts about improving my life - most specifically my day to day feelings and attitude. Today's little thought is - would it be possible for me start behaving in such away as to no longer have any regrets? I'm talking about fairly substantial regrets that if you had a choice you would go about differently and even wish you had the opportunity to go back and undo things.

Fortunately for me, not many of those have come along, and most of my regrets in my life have revolved around relationships - both with family and romantic relationships. Somehow, any mistakes I might make relating to other aspects of my life, doesn't quite qualify for classification as a regret. Altogether I've had three such regrets thus far. Two of those relate to romantic relationships and the other the relationship I had with my father, especially towards the last few years of his life.

I'm not about to go into any sort of depth into any of the stories, but I would like to touch on what I believe the real cause of the regret has been each time. Starting with my first regret in life, this happened roughly towards the early part of 2005. I basically found myself regretting entering into a relationship with someone in the first place. Based on an array of feelings that occurred over the course of this relationship, I regret the judgment I had formed of this person's character as I was completely wrong in my perception. As a result I paid a heavy price and felt that I had gained nothing from the experience. I even refused to let it change my outlook in life. I refused to learn and benefit indirectly from this experience! I guess where that leaves me today is - everyone makes mistakes and they're difficult to avoid if you choose to live life fully. I'm not going to go and put myself into a cage! ;)

My next regret came along towards the end of 2006. From this experience I have definitely learned, and learned the hard way, that is! This is by far my biggest regret in life. My regret is that I failed to ever step out of my shoes as a daughther and relate to my father as a fellow human being. So, even though my father passed away when I was already an adult (aged 26), my relationship with him didn't evolve at the same pace I did and I'm sure he did too. It's like what we had at the time of his death was just based on a shell of the father daughter relationship we had with me as a young adult while I was still living in South Africa. I basically lived my life on auto-pilot, so as time went by with me living in the UK, we spoke on the phone less and less and I never paid any conscious attention to cultivating a better relationship with him, despite knowing at the back of my head that he didn't have much time. I really question and fail to understand how I had not thought about this. I only really needed to think about it a little bit more than I did, and I would've awoken from the bubbled existence I seemed to have had back then. Even though this was a hard lesson for me to learn, it is the main reason I've become so passionate about living life consciously and making real choices in life. I don't think any of us really comprehend how easily the unconscious mind takes control of who we are. Sure, I might just be looking for an out, as I obviously am still struggling with major feelings of guilt and regret. But, then again, why would I be so shaken by the experience if I had consciously chosen this? That's my whole point, I never did. Not at the time anyway, but probably somewhere along the way when I was younger.

My last regret once again relates to relationships. This is a rather strange one and I'm not entirely sure why I regret this or even if I really would once enough time passes. I think I regret the fact that I was confronted with a difficult choice and possibly dissapointed someone along the way. I guess it's a little easier to be the one that's hurt rather than having to deal with letting someone else down? In this case, I don't even know if the affected person cared at all, but still just the fact that the possibility exists is enough. I don't know.

Perhaps having regrets means that in essence we do not really fully understand why a certain event had to come about exactly as it did in the first place, but still realising it was all under my control and that I had made a big mistake with some rather unfortunate repercussions!

I guess my verdict on my question, can I live a life without regrets, is that maybe having regrets is not something I should try to avoid as of itself. As a person that takes responsibility for myself and my circumstances it's inevitable that mistakes will be made and regrets will be had. Perhaps it is rather the way I deal with it that needs changing?