I have been finding myself lately thinking about the past and regretting one action or another. I am not preoccupied with these thoughts, though they are bothersome. The process is like this, the thought about the event occurs, I regret the action by comparing my actual behavior to a potentially more correct behavior, and then I rehearse in my mind the correct behavior.

This is probably a normal process, though it usually is accompanied by negative feelings.

This process is very interesting, and I do have questions:

1. How do I know what the “right” behavior is?
2. Why must the process be accompanied by negative feelings?
3. What stops the process?

It is interesting that I sometimes believe that the past should be different than it was. There are a few truths about the past:

1. It is unchangeable, so any negative thoughts about the past being what it is amounts to fighting reality; I will lose every time.
2. I always do the best I can, so when I perform an action, it is always the best I could do at that moment. This is nothing to feel bad about.
3. Things that happen should happen. Things could not have happened any other way given the knowledge and level of development of surrounding people and things.   

Right now I am trying more to fully accept the reality of things, and I am using my painful feelings as a trigger that reminds me to get back on track.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 2:12 am and is filed under Happiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.