I recently was corresponding with someone who was lamenting their life choices, and questioning whether they could have chosen differently. This opened a dialog.

To paraphrase a much longer interaction, they felt all their efforts to live a good life and become more self-aware had failed, regardless of what they had done to improve themselves. They wondered why some people seem to get “mercy” even when they lack self-awareness, but good people often do not. They spoke of alternating between “feeling normal” and then flipping into very funky states, with the good times becoming fewer and the bad times becoming worse.

They felt like everything was out of balance and that often “the struggle wasn’t worth it.” They had serious regrets for how they were behaving toward their loved ones and children, feeling like they had ruined their own life as well as their kids’ lives, and was questioning all the choices they had ever made in their adult life.

As I have had others also express a variation of some of these regrets, questions, and frustrations, I figured this would be a good post for those readers who also have questions or doubts about their life choices and whether they could they have done better.

I responded that one great universal for all of us is that life is painful. Our purpose is to break the link between pain and suffering. While we strive for foresight, usually we have limited ability to anticipate how some things will turn out over the long run. We also tend to make choices which “seemed like a good idea at the time.” Because we don’t have perfect understanding, many times we make the best choice we can in our ignorance and hope for the best.

Sometimes our choices create effects we could never have anticipated before we made that choice. As a result of a choice to try to parent, I wound up in hell for 7 years. I shared that I also have known what it's like to live in hell and during those years questioned just about every element of my life and many of the choices I made to find myself at that point.

Though my own struggle with life and death and choice and destiny was certainly “worth it” for me, I told them no one else can say whether another’s struggle may or may not "be worth it." All our struggles are part of the mystery of why we're here, what we're here to fulfill, the love we're here to learn, and the patience which comes with understanding that regardless of how things appear, we are Eternals having a human experience.

I believe we're here to understand our worst experience joins us to countless others throughout time who also have felt exactly as we do. Ultimately it will open us to the heart of compassion and we understand that we share countless wounds and triumphs with countless others across space and time. That's no comfort when we're in hell. But it is a universal that all of us wind up in hell at some point and have no control over if or when it will end.

Mine ended after 7 years of nonstop difficulty. And because I stayed open hearted and compassionate throughout the journey, even though it was excruciatingly painful at times, when it was over I had become a better, stronger, more Soul-ful man for my troubles.

Having seen the whole spectrum of how parents and children relate to each other, I told them I doubted that their children are "ruined." No matter how messed up our parents were, or deficient in parenting skills, we ALL have to learn that regardless of our parenting, we must learn that life on Earth is about growth, whether we like it or not, or understand it or not.

I also offered that I believe any ability we have to name what we’re struggling with is indicative of some measure of healing. I’ve also noted in situations where we feel like we made bad choices and “ruined” this or that, it’s only our mind giving our heart a hard time, and the only solution is to remember we are living Soul/Spirits who need to learn how to cut ourselves some slack as a human. And of course, get whatever help calls to our heart.

I reminded them that there are millions of us who have endured years of hell. Not that we have all the answers, or even the answers others seek. But we do know feelings of hopelessness and helplessness as well as knowing we somehow made it through the night.

When I spent my years in hell, enduring the pressure of uncertainty and feelings of failure, it helped me to remember that my mind and ego will think and feel many things, and if I can't make it better, I should not make it worse. As I noted in my grief manual Love, Dad, I found that I could ride the waves of grief, panic, and disorientation by focusing on “breathe and love and breathe and love and breathe and love and....” That's how I got through my years of excruciating agony along with some therapy and doing what I could to be open to my friends.

We cannot change the past, but we can refuse to allow our past, our memories, and our judgments to derail our present life and future potentials. That means we cannot attach too much to actions and non-actions when we were younger, since if we had known better we would have done better. As the I Ching offers, “the best way to fight evil is to make progress in the good.” Put another way, it’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

We cannot unring certain bells, but we can certainly make more harmonious music in the future. We can always turn toward a better way of living our Truth and Light, and can only fulfill that in our own way. Those who want to learn shall learn. Those who seek shall find. We can all find what we need if we just open to a different way leading out of the self-doubt and harsh judgments of the ego mind and its traps.

Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with written permission from Robert Wilkinson. Copying this article to other blogs is strictly prohibited. It is copyright protected. 

© Copyright 2023 Robert Wilkinson

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