Regret

In recent years it has been popular to shun regret. I, myself bought into this philosophy, believeing that every experience is a learning experience and therefore a good one. What I have come to realize is that my logic was fatally flawed. While it is true that you can learn from mistakes, that doesn't make the mistake a good experience. It was still a bad choice and a bad experience. I have made some very bad choices over the course of my life, and though it is easier to say "oh, well, it was a learning experience," it would be more beneficial for me to call it what it is - more often than not: sin. Despite what we'd like to believe, regret has its place in our lives. Our culture would like to believe that there is no absolute truth... it's all about perception and how we view things based on our own personal experience. But there was a time when people felt things like shame, and rightfully so. Now, we manage to repress it. Guilt, regret, and shame - things that are meant to help us not repeat bad choices - are now lumped into a category of things that ought never to be felt. If you do admit to having those kinds of feelings, people will tell you that you need to "work through" it. I've come to the conclusion these feelings are the result of a conscience that still knows right from wrong, even if we would like to believe otherwise. Don't deny the feelings... even the tenderest of consciences can become hardened after years of accepting the lie that we ought not regret our bad choices and mistakes. Pain is not always necessary in the pursuit of joy, and at the very least suffering with a clear conscience is better than suffering because of one's own failures.