Magpie Monday's -rear view mirrors

It seems far too often in life one makes decisions based on how to avoid the most pain instead of finding the most happiness for all.

What do I mean?

All around me I see my closest friends, the one's I care very deeply for, making decisions based on guilt, and it saddens me. For instance, I have a very dear friend, at sort of a crossroad in life, so unhappy and stressed by the current landscape of his life and yet he's accepted it for years. And that alone saddens me, I want the very best for those I care deeply for. His fear immobilizes him. The fear of failure, the fear of the unknown. In his life, as well as so many others, the immobility has led to years of accepting a situation that leaves one unfulfilled, often disappointed and so clearly longing for more.

He's stuck, he's not moving forward.

There's no need to ask why or wonder, it's all too common of an answer. Fear of change keeps you locked to accepting situations where you have so much less in life than one deserves. All too often we accept the situations we're in, perhaps because the comfort of the crappy known, is far better than the fear of the unknown. For instance:

Fear keeps people in bad marraiges.
Fear keeps people from changing careers.
Fear keeps the truth at bay.

In the end, we all experience this in life, but the trick is to learn from what the fear does to you and much more so, what the freedom of choice does for you. When you learn to stop letting the fear of short term pain or discomfort keep you from long term love of life, well, that's when life rewards you and often the ones you love. And then there's the idea (aka "falsehood") of the right time.

There's never a right time, there's never a better time. In life, things only get more complicated, more difficult. And therein lies the dilema. The longer you wait to do something out of fear the more difficult it becomes and the more damage it does and can do to everyone around you, then the fear gets greater over time, not less.

Decisions made out of fear can result in regret. And regret is what you see when you look in the rearview mirror. I'm now learning to live life without regret, I am who I am, I love who/what I love and I want happiness the way I want it, and Magpie, there's nothing wrong with reaching that point in life, I only hope you reach it sooner than I did.

There's a reason the mirrors on cars say "object are closer than they appear".

For when you look in the rear view mirror of life, regret is something which follows you much closer than you realize and it will always be there.

So here's to the hope that my friend comes out from the cloud of fear and finds the sunlight and warmth back in his life, he very much deserves it. Live without regret Magpie, you and those you love will be all the better for it.