Letting Go of the Past

     Regret is a useless preoccupation.  I recently was talking to a wise person, a confident about my regrets and how I feel that decisions I had made caused damage in the lives of myself and those I love.  
     "So, you feel you did it on purpose?" he asked.  
     "No, of course not," I said realizing how silly I must sound.  
     The resolution is that nothing can be done about the past, but you have to go forward.  It sounds trite I suppose, but it is true.
     I think everyone has things in their lives that they wish they had done differently, and maybe some have easier lives than others, less complicated and confusing, less loss.  
     Some of us who have had the rug pulled out and a lot of disappointments and losses sometimes become afraid, walking through life tentatively so as not to provoke more pain to come our way, like walking on thin ice.
     I suppose some people have a good head on their shoulders from beginning to end, but I have not.  I have had to grow wise with the years and have learned to avoid what is bad for me, what I once could not see, and even if I could see could not seem to control my decisions very well.
     I will not bore you with the boring past relationship mistakes, but sometimes a bad relationship can be an addiction, like a drug.  You get over it and move on.  You might even find someone else who is nice, and might even find your life falling together again like someone adhering to a twelve step program as an analogy.  Then the object or person of one's addiction shows up, and like a drug or alcohol to an alcoholic, one is tempted into one little bit of involvement only to find oneself struggling to get out like a drowning person.  
     It sounds like drama, but I think people are not robots, not perfect, not all good and not all bad.  I wish I could have lived my whole life like a stepford wife, but it just did not work that way.  Now I am perfect - kidding.  I am far from perfect.
    So, I concur that all there is to do is let go of the past.  Let go and let good things start to happen.  Or as Baba said "don't worry, be happy.  I will help you... " and something like "do your best."   And, I strongly recommend The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.  Just listening to his soothing voice talking on CD helps me feel more calm, serene and resigned to what is.  You can still make good things happen as well.  I do not mean to say that one should give up, but "acceptance is the key."  I did not come up with that slogan, but I did use it in a song I wrote called 'Lately'.  Namaste.