1.)
What is my big question?
I have many, to be honest.
However, one that seems to keep popping up in my mind is why do we regret? I’m only seventeen, and I’ve got a lot of
regrets. Some big ones. And I want to know why. Where do we get the idea that it’s okay to
regret things we’ve done throughout our lives?
Is it natural to regret or have we just been raised with the notion that
we should regret things we’ve done?
It was late at night, and I was angry. I mean, really angry. My mom and I have been disagreeing over
colleges and majors and careers ever since I retracted my seventh grade
statement that I wanted to be a nurse. I
don’t want that anymore. I want to do
something that I’m good at and passionate for.
I want to do something that challenges me, and I want to show the world…
and my mom, that I can do whatever I want.
Everything she brought up was what I was against. You won’t make a lot of money. Acting is not a solid career. Screenwriting isn’t very sensible. She just didn’t get it, and wouldn’t let me
speak. I was frustrated. And upset.
And really sad that she didn’t want me to do whatever made me
happy. So I wrote her an e-mail,
disputing everything she brought up. At
the end of the e-mail, I told her she would never understand. That she never wanted anything that she had
to work for, and she just took the easy route for everything. I told her I didn’t want to be her, stuck in
an office doing something that will never mean anything in the end. Then, I pressed send. And she never brought it up again. I regret that. I regret that I can’t say sorry to her or
that I possibly made her feel unimportant in any way. I love her, and she’s the most important
person in my entire life. I feel that
regret every day.
I think any movie, book, or song relates to regret. We all carry our regrets around, and it’s
like a stone in our pocket. They are
weighty, but eventually we start going for longer periods of time without
noticing the stone. Then we reach into
our pockets for something, and we feel the stone. We remember the regret, and then that
weightiness comes back, strong as ever.
A really good book, song, or movie touches us in different ways; but it
should relate to everything in our lives.
Regret, death, life, love, happiness; everything.
Lauren,
ReplyDeleteYour powerful personal example of communication/miscommunication proves the importance of your question about regret. How might communication/miscommunication be a key characteristic of regret? How about for Oedipus?