Aphorism 49
No man is rich enough to buy back his past.
Oscar Wilde, as quoted in the Viking Book of Aphorisms.
Interpretation
I have often found myself consumed by regrets for the past.
This is despite the fact that I try to view every experience as something that has value in context of my whole life. Even miserable, tragic moments contain some sort of lesson or prize.
However, even if making good decisions one is left with the tendency to ask the dreaded question: "What if?"
I think this question does more harm than good.
The one thing that is immutable is the past. No amount of success in the present can change the past, but it can build on it.
I think there's also an element here of a call to act in accordance with what would not bring one regret. This takes a little bit of thought, and it definitely requires one to sort one's priorities out. However, it's also worth noting that sometimes it is better to abandon regret than to dwell on it.
Along the lines of an injunction to moral action, I think Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray serves to illustrate his point. It's not that one should just run from the regret of the past, but that one should act in accordance with avoiding the regret of the future. Dorian Gray gets the chance to have all of the misery he causes taken out on a homunculus of himself, freeing him from the consequences of his own actions.
However, this Faustian pact protects his body but not his spirit. He eventually becomes so torn up by his regrets–incurring damage which he causes without thinking it will have a consequence for himself–that he destroys the painting that has given him immortality and becomes the withered man that he should be.
I think that one of the best antidotes to this sort of tragedy is to confront one's feelings frequently. If they're permitted to build up, they create the sort of toxic regrets that can destroy a person.
Resolution
Confront problems when they happen.
Ask myself if I end each day without regret. If I cannot, what do I change to make it possible?
Never let pride come in the way of self-knowledge.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://blog.homoeoteleuton.com/reflections-on-aphorisms-29/