Day 116 – Looking at the Point of Regret

In this writing I am looking at the point of regret. I have a lot of what I call 'nostalgia' for the past, specifically my late childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. Starting when I was a child, I very shy. I hardly spoke. I hardly made myself heard. This condition got even worse while in college. Around the age of 28 I started to come around, and by the time I was in my early 30s, I had gotten over this shyness, for the most part. Yet, I still have anxiety when speaking with certain people of which I think is still basically remnants of the same shyness I had. As a result, there are a lot of things that I did not do, and did not say that I could have or should have. I remember always carrying this fear of being seen as stupid or boring so much so that I just couldn't even say anything at all while in social situations, except with close friends of which I had very few.

So, I have a lot of nostalgia for the past. This is strange because the past was difficult for me, yet I have these longings for it. Or these longings to recreate the past in a way by making my current reality similar to the past. So, is this nostalgia really a form of regret? I mean, I look back and think to myself 'how was I so quiet and shy back then when this is not me now?”, and 'if I could only go back in time, and be who I am now, how would my present be now? Would I have a better job?”. Yet, I also have this idea, at the same time, that the past was 'better' than my experience of myself now, in some ways.

So there is a point of desiring to go back and just simply live in the past before life got so 'difficult' when I had more support from parents and did not have to face myself within all the 'responsibilities' of adulthood. Like, I feel like I so much more 'freedom' back then when all I had to do was basic chores, or while in college just get a night job, and then I had the rest of my time to do what I 'wanted' and there was not so much financial pressure, yet I didn't do what I wanted because I was to shy / suppressed to actually express myself the way the I wanted.

And also the point of desiring to go back and relive the past exists within the point that I am so much more 'together' now, and have self-confidence, etc, and if I could only be who I am now in the past, then I would have had so much more fun and I would have set myself up to get such a better job because I understand the 'system' now and human nature and all that.

So, I will pick up on this on the next post.