[billybobsky]

I once believe I was capable of living without regret -- that somehow the decisions I made could never create a situation which was so contrary to what I had wanted that it created the unimaginable urge to change a moment of time.

The thought was two-fold:
1) That actions and decisions on my part are even remotely considered at the moment they are made.
2) That you cannot possibly ever place yourself in that situation again to analyze your acts because you already know the outcome and thus it is irrelevant to reconsider something that has already been done.

Live and let live, or let it be.

But something always nagged me about this approach. To live without regrets is to not live, right? Rather, I think I have come to realization that to live without regrets is to live without intention. Acts which can be placed in the category of considered and untouchable by later analyses are also implicitly acts which move the momentum of their after-effects onto the external. Basically, the world acts on you. Your actions are but meaningless afterthoughts on your behalf. You can't possibly have regrets because you aren't the man behind the curtain pulling the wheels and pressing the levers.

So when does one know they act with intention? I spent the better part of my life feeling like I was being led somewhere by an external force, perhaps not by a deity but rather that the subtle equilibriums of human society and genetics, and that my place will be made by all that is around me. Destined for something, I could coast through life, working when I felt like it and ultimately able to accept my fate when the final curtains closed.

But then something happened. I met a girl. And before I even knew how to pronounce her name she asked me "do you really want to go to med school?" Me: "Yes, I really want to help people..." You know the drill. She challenged me and I her, and I would like to believe that we both fell in love. But she also lived without regrets, although more fully than my autopilot had allowed me.

Our differences and fate together were sufficient enough to keep things going for three years. But for intention... In a relationship between two individuals who simply believe that they are actors lounging in a raft floating on the (excuse this) stream of life, a great deal gets lost between the rapids. Our fights were brutal and soul crushing but to me it was always her and to her it was always me. Bumping along that stream, we felt that the other had the paddle and was steering. But for intention...

I took a chance last summer after I was rejected for the second year in a row to an MD/PhD program; I chose to join the graduate group in which I was working as a lab tech and possibly try for medical school another day, another time. My girlfriend entered her senior year anxious about her future and fully aware that now that I had made my choice to stay on in this program that she would be forced to make a choice at some point. Intention. I found that as soon as I had established a plan that seemingly would stretch beyond my possible line of sight I lost my will to fight with her. I wanted a relationship that wasn't held together by fights, I wanted her to understand that we can act as a unit and not resort to our petty tactics.

The thing about intention is that it never works. While it is certainly clear that neither of us were really simply floating on rafts our whole life, it is also not particularly true that we shaped the rapids that overturned our rafts alone. When you argue from the secure rocky bottom of the steam with someone floating uncontrollably over the category five rapids above you come off as a jerk and uncaring. Intention begets Regret which begets more Intention.

I know that to live with regret is to live, really live, but it needs intention. I asked for a break to allow us to consider the other in peaceful part of the stream. I was rebuffed because she doubted my intentions (heh). Only figuring I could prove my true and most meaningful intentions, I proposed to her. No answer and more doubts of my intention and I withdrew. To live is to live with intention. I was hurt, I wanted to hurt back, I wanted to feel the freshness of a new relationship. I cheated. I felt alive, but it was only temporary. The thing about intention is that it never works. There is always some cog in the wheel. In this case it was my heart -- it never left her.

Six months later and that is still where I am. I love her dearly but I know I can't go back. I wonder sometimes about what I could have done differently, I regret words I have spoken to her even up to yesterday. Contact is sparse. I live better because I was forced to act with intention, not perfectly, but I am getting there... I don't see the person I cheated on her with any longer and that while a regret is not at all a daily consideration, but she is.

So yeah, don't let opportunities pass you by, but tread lightly, the ground beneath the waves isn't exactly terafirma...

bruce