Regretting Regets

D.H. Lawrence once wrote:

"I want to live my life so that my nights are not full of regrets."

When you get into the 80's I suppose it is only normal that you tend to glance back and think about some of the things you did, or did not do, in the many days gone by. We are all faced with choices as we move through life. It is only natural to wonder if you always made the right choice.

I remember reading about a young nurse in Australia who gathered together into a book the regrets of some of her dying patients. They included things like being sorry they worked so hard, trying to live according to the expectations of others, an inability to express emotions, not staying in touch with friends and so on. One I liked was the dying man's regret for not letting himself be happy!

One of my small regrets....it must be a regret because I am still aware of what I did. In my high school days I used to hitch a ride to the summer cottage in the spring to work on the boats over  the weekends. One year, one of my friends had also come to the little colony along the Saint John River in New Brunswick to do the same thing. I had a friend with me that week-end and late Saturday night we got the idea of sneaking over and making a ruckus around his cottage. It must have been after midnight and we cracked sticks and stomped around pretending we were a bear. I know we scared the hell out of the poor lad for he packed up early Sunday morning and headed back to the city.

Then there are the career regrets. I was a pretty good hockey player in the late 40's and one year was presented with an offer to try out for a professional team. I was in college at the time and had to weigh the choice between playing professional hockey or continuing on with my education. I decided to carry on with the education. But to this day I still wonder that if I had made the team how different my life would have been. In the end I made the right decision for I have been very fortunate. In spite of that, I still wonder what if I had made the team and gone on to a hockey career?  I still have all my body parts and am married to a wonderful woman. Still...what if. Nah, it was only a dream.

But looking back this way does help me focus on how I am living my life now. Like many others I do want to be liked. But I don't behave because of some other person's expectation, nor do I let that desire interfere with the way I interact with others. Now that I am retired all these years I am not working too hard! I firmly believe in happiness and I want to be happy and I am.

So when I am on my dying bed and some sweet nurse asks me what was the major regret of my life I have my answer. I don't want to go until I find out about the universe, about the future of civilization and how will our world end up? Finally the big question: 'Why is there something rather than nothing?'  Yes, I am going to regret never finding the answer to many questions -  I don't have any regrets about the path I have traveled, just sadness that there are so many questions that will never be answered for me.

And that's Dick's View of the World this Week.