regrets

“Regrets, I’ve had a few…” Paul Anka’s words for his update of “Comme d’habitude” to “My Way” for Sinatra. Comes to mind as I consider a friend who recently told me living a life with any regrets was verboten.
Well, gotta tell you, I disagree. Not saying regrets are good: not at all. But to suggest that you can escape this life without having a regret or two suggests to me you may not have lived much of a life in the first place.
Take me, for instance, I regret that I did not make a success of marriage. I’m envious of those friends who have made their marital unions work and have stayed together. Didn't work out for me. And I regret that.
I also regret the fact that I gave away too much during my business years. I actually invented a couple of  neat processes that I should have controlled and sold for lots of dough. But I was too focused on running the biz rather than bringing products to market; I managed to let them slip away. Oh well… overall I can’t complain, because I enjoyed a good, fruitful career.
There may be other regrets that I can’t think of now. But really: do you think you’ve lived at all if you say you have absolutely no regrets in life?

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