Monday, July 7, 2014

Not Living With Regret Emails

Had this interesting email discussion with a friend, thought I would post it here as typed (with a few cleanups of language). You need to start at the bottom of this blog entry and read up. In this exchange as in most things I am the pretentious long winded one! : )
----------------------

Gerry wrote: yes regret…thats something hard to get past…being old and not able to do stuff and then regretting not doing it when I was younger has inspired me my whole life, it has got me to get off my lazy ass and do shit while I still can. 


Passing stuff off till tomorrow is a recipe for not doing anything, and later regretting your choices.

Not wanting regret is one of the great motivators for this next phase in my life…I should have enough money  to chase down some of my photo dreams…not saying I will achieve them but I want to try as hard as I can while I still can so that later on when I am in Dads current  situation I can think back and say to myself…   I F--KING TRIED…I GAVE IT MY BEST SHOT…I HAVE NOTHING TO REGRET…(or at least less to regret)

then there are fewer WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEENS…etc.. 

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2014 12:40:11 -0600
Subject: Re: great quote

L wrote: I think regret is more sad than bitter or angry.

On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 10:45 PM, Gerry wrote:
Gerry wrote: yes your quote is a philosophy for much of my overseas stuff..the one I remember is

"Failure is not as painful an emotion as regret"...in other words better to try and fail at something then later on life regretting not trying...someday I might be the old man in a wheelchair after a stroke that I saw growing up as a dietary aid in hospitals...when that guy is me I would rather have failures  in my life...than having to live with the regret of never trying..living with the knowledge that I had the chances and did not take advantage of them would be very very hard to deal with...that's how you turn into a bitter angry old dude.


Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2014 20:05:53 -0600
Subject: Re: great quote
 
L wrote: I like the quote:  "Better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all".  The sentiment is similar.  You are certainly correct.  Talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words.


On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 3:59 PM, Gerry  wrote: