Lately some teen stars (who I won’t name, but we all know who they are) have apologized for pictures of themselves that have been released on the Internet. These pictures were posed and not taken accidentally, and yet somehow these stars didn’t realize until after their release that they were inappropriate. I’m a little confused by that—if there’s a camera pointed at you and you aren’t fully clothed, I would think that you’d know what was going on. Anyway, pushing my little judgmental voice back into the box where I try to keep it, I’ll move on to the point of this blog, which is living a life without regret.
We all do really dumb things from time to time. Unfortunate words slip out of our mouths, we lose our tempers, we speed (yes, even I have gone to traffic school – and now you know I’m not perfect.)Those are things that happen so quickly (especially the speeding—it’s really fast—hence the name, speeding) that we sometimes don’t have the control we need to keep them from happening. Other things, though, can easily be headed off before they take place.
As we make decisions in our lives, we can ask ourselves, “Is this something I’m going to regret later?” One teenager of my acquaintance said it this way: “I ask myself, am I going to be embarrassed to see this written in my journal?” Taking this quick evaluation of our situation might help us in two ways—by helping us to avoid embarrassment, and helping us to avoid sin.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve really been trying hard to evaluate my actions and to determine whether I will or won’t regret them down the road. I still do really dumb, impulsive things. I make flippant comments without realizing the possible impact. I lose my temper a bit more than I should. But on the bigger issues, I think I’m being a little bit wiser, a little more introspective, and hopefully a little more careful in my decisions so I don’t have to live a life filled with regret.
Oh, and I’ve been really good about the speeding thing, too. One session of traffic school was enough for me – it was really humiliating, and I wasn’t really speeding, anyway. You see, it was like this . . .
Related Blogs:
When Your Thinking Gets Skewed
It Doesn’t Feel Like I’m Overreacting at the Time!