First off, I’m fine, I’m in a good place, safe, etc. This is just kinda stream of consciousness, so sorry in advance.
I’ve lived my life a long time with a sense of fatalism that bordered suicidal, and I’ve lived a crazy life. Got kicked out young, was into crypto in the early 2010’s but didn’t have enough capital to do anything interesting, couch surfed, homeless shelters, all kinds of stuff. People would ask me if I had any regrets and I legitimately never did.
Now, I have lots of regrets…
I regret being stagnant basically since puberty, living like some Punk Rock Peter Pan, drinking every day for decades, doing nothing but playing video games and smoking weed and blasting myself into some other life any way I could. I existed like an astral projection of myself, too apathetic to brush my teeth or do anything productive with my body. Workout goals never resonated with me, so I never did that either.
I have the general regret I didn’t come out to myself sooner, but I find that wholly unproductive, so I don’t entertain it, but these other regrets, they are making the tapestry of the game plan to get myself back on track and i don’t have the luxury to ignore it.
I’m making great progress, counting my calorie intake, being active, practicing mindfulness, but the more I do and feel better about myself, the more that regret nags at me.
It Just kinda dawned on me while I was sitting here, I’m actually afraid to die now, made me think about what else had changed when I realized I regret so much now, and it didn’t make me who I was anymore than the trauma or anything else, and now I feel brain fucked.
I dunno what the call to action is here, any of y’all relate or have anything to say?
There’s a thing called ‘living amends.’
Basically, when you go through your day you try to make life better for other people. Maybe it’s just letting someone else get a seat on the bus, or being patient with an overworked employee. It could be givign a beggar enough for a meal, or buying them food.
I call that philosophy “Altruistic Hedonism”, and is one I’ve lived by for a long time. Basically make life as pleasurable for as many people as possible and life gets better for all of us. In my view “selfish hedonism” is a root cause of many people’s dissatisfaction in life. Just look at black rock investing talking over a majority of rentals in the US. Make everybody miserable and make life worse for everyone so you can feel pleasure from a slightly larger number in a computers memory somewhere.
There are gray areas of course. If you’ve ever meet someone going through a twelve step program that got to the make amends part that randomly came into your life to apologize again and end up doing more harm than good, but at least THEY feel better about it.