I grabbed just a bit of local Morning TV, as I was eating my oatmeal, this AM. You know how Morning TV goes; they do these stupid little bits. Me, I like information. I want to learn. But, sadly (or maybe not), their focus is often on the more mundane.
 
Anyway, the question they asked is, “Do you have any regrets?” About ninety-one percent of the people who responded said they did. I semi-jokingly exclaimed, “My whole life is a long list of regrets.”
 
One of the hosts stated that tried and true, relatively false statement, “That you can’t change your past, so you just need to live with it and accept it.” But, that is all too BS shallow for me. If you don’t have regrets, you are a sociopath.
 
But, here’s the question, “If you do have regrets, what are doing to remedy them?”
 
Think about your own life, do you have regrets? What regrets do you have?
 
Now, think about this… Most of us do accept that we have regrets. We did something that we are really sorry that we did. We turned left when we should have turned right. We made a decision to do something that turned out badly and maybe it even sent our life in the wrong direction. Maybe we are really sorry about something we did to someone else that hurt them. And, all of that kind of stuff…
 
But, in all of that, that Life Action is trapped only in your own mind. And/or maybe the person or persons you lived it with.
 
For most, we try to block that/those incident(s) out. We try to forget it.  But, think about this, as technology has moved forward, there are cameras everywhere. I won’t even go into all the possibilities of being photographed, but the chance of your, “Regret,” being photographed has advanced immensely.
 
What if there is a picture of your crime? Then what? Like it is stated, the Aboriginal tribes of the times gone past believed that a photograph would steal your soul. …I don’t know if anyone or any tribe actually believed that, but that is what is stated. But, think about it, what if you had to view a picture of your regret? What if it was locked into the annals of time forever?
 
Kind of a sidebar here. But, not really…
 
I remember when I was watching the first season of the TV show COPS. …One of my big influences as a filmmaker. I guess that would have been in ’89, when it premiered. On one of the episodes the, “COPS,” went to a hotel room at what was then known as, “The Rock n’ Roll Hyatt,” on the Sunset Strip. This was due to the fact that, back in the day, a lot of the Rockers on tour seemed to stay there. Anyway, they went into a room where there was a reported disturbance. There was a young Asian woman and about three, “Rocker,” type dudes. You know, long hair and cowboy boots, ‘80s style. “What do you think happened,” states the girl to the, “COPS,” and the cameras.
 
BAM! I knew that girl. We had met in Japan and when she moved to L.A. she looked me up. We had gone out for a moment. In fact, she got drunk and crashed her car, breaking both of her legs at one point. After hearing this, my friend and I went to speak with her one drunken night at two or three in the morning at USC Medical Center, just before we were going on a quick tour. Me, I was the only one who hung out with her when she was wheelchair bound at home.
 
For whatever reason, I was busy or whatever, and I moved on. I hadn’t seen her in a year or more. But, there she was, featured on COPS.
 
Now, she was no saint. I’m sure whatever happened in that room, she was a willing participant. But, there it was, caught on camera. Locked into the mainstream of modern culture forever.  Did she regret it? Did she regret signing the release for it to be broadcast on COPS? I don’t know. But, this/there is an ideal example of having your regret caught on camera.
 
That doesn’t happen to most people, however. What they do is, “Photographed,” only in their own mind. And there, it is locked away and hidden forever.
 
Again, what do you regret? And, what if what your regret was photographed and brought to the surface? How would that change how you reacted to that regret?
 
In some ways that may make people try to fix what they regret, especially if that regret hurt someone else. Most, simply pretend that they didn’t do it. But, you did do it. Regret it or not, it is one of the factors that defines your life. Simply because you pretend it did not happen, does not mean that it did not happen.
 
Life is complicated. We all have regrets. Well, at least ninety-one percent of us do, so says Morning TV. Most regrets we can’t really change. So yes, our only hope is to live with them the best that we can. But, if you can fix your regrets, if you can fix what you’ve broken, if you can unhurt that person that you hurt, don’t you believe that you should at least try? And, if you have hurt someone, or even yourself, and you don’t care, what does that say about the person you are?