Mistakes Abound

I get very depressed and unresponsive every time I think about the fact that I seem to regret pretty much everything I've said and done. Why did I say that? Why didn't I do that? So on and so forth. And I doubt I'm alone in this. We grimace at the memory of what we used to be, how silly, how stupid we were. We see ourselves in hindsight and cringe at it. Remembering how you handled something with fondness is like finding money stuck in a library book. Unexpected and pleasantly surprising.

And this is paradoxical. The fact that we see our mistakes means that we can learn form them, which in turn means that we are evolving and refining ourselves. That thought alone should be enough to counteract the regret of your actions, or lack thereof. But instead we're cursed to linger on and exaggerate the gaffes of or past selves.

Evolutionarily speaking, it does makes sense. Those who remember their missteps more acutely than others are less inclined to make the same mistake twice, which, in the wild, can be lethal. Human nature has evolved in order to cause us to make as few mistakes as possible, particularly social. But sometimes it goes too far, and the bitterness over your past is enough to drive anyone mad.

And thinking along those lines, anyone who says your mistakes don't define you, well, think about it more carefully. Your choices define you, do they not? So, mistakes are a slice of that pie. You can't just ignore something that influences your thought processes so profoundly, both logically and emotionally, merely because you don't like your self-criticism.

But I suppose the best thing we can do is to just learn from our oversights and make the best of it. Just because you don't like it or agree with it doesn't mean that you can just ignore your past, lest your future pay.