Article Analysis: Regret

“And it hits me, not then, but today, thirty years later. Thirty years too late”(91). Those are the words of Jessamyn Hope when speaking about her experience with regret regarding her life’s decisions, the major theme for her essay. Her essay tells the story about how she failed to overcome two life challenges, one having a direct physical impact and the other having a delayed impact. The essay “The Reverse Dive” by Jessamyn Hope is a narrative essay looking to persuade its reader through the use of analogy, empirical evidence, and appeal to emotion that one should face their challenges while they can to avoid regrets.

Was there a time that Regret came up because someone either did or said something? Regret leads to life changing decisions. Many people make mistakes, however there will always be regret and wish they could do something about. In “ The scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, the Narrator feels regret, which leads to how he thinks and treats people.

The Past, an ever growing pool of time, is always biting at the heels of a person. It reminds him of what they have done wrong, done right, or when he did nothing. For most people, recalling the past leads to loose ends and blanks where memories should be. No matter how much a person may want to return to the past, it is not possible. It is lost forever. These forgotten moment lead to uncertainties and confusion in the present, and chaos in the future. Forgetting the past leads to spirals, spinning downwards as people look to what they have lost. They retrace their steps hoping to find a sliver of who they are and what may become of them. In the poem, Itinerary, Eamon Grennan shows how an individual searches through his past, but can never return to it. Through the poem and with a personal experience I will explain how individuals deal with uncertainties in their pasts.

Buddha, a man who devoted himself to years of contemplation and self-denial, once said “do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment”. Thinking too much about times gone by typically keeps your mind stuck in neutral. Existing in an earlier life could result in revisiting feelings of anger, guilt, resentment, sorrow, or shame. Obsessing about the people and events precipitating such negative feelings can lead to endless rethinking. Becoming increasingly lifeless, or infatuated, thinking really cannot progress toward any resolution. Ultimately, it is pointless to employ memory to hold onto what may have been lost many years ago. As a result of not letting go of the past, it is possible to be robbed of present opportunities. Often, in many novels the characters are still dwelling on their past in the present. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author demonstrates how George Wilson and Jay Gatsby are held hostage by their pasts with little hope for their futures.

As we grow and mature, we take on more responsibilities, and learn new lessons everyday. We learn through good experiences and through bad ones. Although there are many we'd like to remember, there are also some we'd like to forget.

As acclaimed author Yvonne Woon wrote, “Sometimes, you have to look back in order to understand the things that lie ahead.” Reflecting, or the act of thinking deeply about a moment from the past, the present, or the possibility of such an event in the future, is an important aspect of human nature, as it serves as a method of learning and as an example of evolution. By reflecting on the modern and historical world, we are able to obtain a deeper understanding of why and how certain things happen, and then decide whether or not we are satisfied with the environment in which we live. Contemplating all the decisions that have been made and all the different circumstances our ancestors have lived through, can serve as guidance for the future.

Late adulthood in Erikson’s life stage theory is the difference between in integrity versus despair. (Ashford & Lecroy, 2013, p. 99) Doris has found her life to be very satisfying. The only thing she wishes could have been changed is the passing of her husband so early. She is content and proud of the way her children have turned out and where her life is currently. We have talked much about how things were as she raised her children and even that of when she was a child. Cappeliez calls this the reminiscence bump, the ability to recall memories from adolescence through young adulthood. (2008, p. 1) She appreciates the life she has been fortunate to have and enjoys sharing the memories she has. I observed the way her face lit up as we talked about her as a child and her children.

Introduction: I have chosen two articles first one is Ronald Grimes “Beginning of Ritual studies” (1982 2nd Edition) Ronald L. Grimes wrote several books on ritual, most recently The Craft of Ritual Studies. He is Researcher and Professor. Second article I choose Tanya Luhrmann “Persuasions of Witch’s craft” Tanya Luhrmann is Professor in the Stanford Anthropology Department. Her books include Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft, (Harvard, 1989); The Good Parsi (Harvard 1996); Of Two Minds (Knopf 2000) and When God Talks Back (Knopf 2012). Her work focuses on the way that ideas held in the mind come to seem externally real to people, and the way that ideas about the mind affect mental experience. One of her recent project compares the experience

Often times we find ourselves thinking about the past only to try to force the memories away and return to our current delusion. We can never erase the past, but if the past is who we are, then should we just welcome pain back into our lives? Embarrassment, guilt, and pride betray us as we choose to bury our darkest memories in our head and look to a positive future without ever having to readdress them and acknowledge that they had ever happened in the first place. Thinking back now my weakest moment caught me by complete surprise.

Every one in the world has probably felt regret from time to time, whether its something small or something huge. In John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck shows multiple examples of regret and what it can do to a person. This is a story of two friends who are seeking a better life and their own place. However, in this search they encounter many problems that prevent them from achieving their dream. The author shows us the many forms of regret and how it affects people.

People regret things they should have or could have done because they realize that it would have possibly had a better impact on their current situation. They regret what they have done because it possibly either affected them or someone else badly or it made an impact on their life which they didn’t want. No matter the reason though, it is a feeling that every human experiences, therefore it is human nature. I think we still make the mistake of doing something even though we’ll regret it because we don’t think about the impact it will have on us or our future as much as we should. People sometimes think more about what they want, rather than what they need of how it will affect them.

As you grow older, you also become wiser, and the way you used to look at things also changes, and even though you regret your former actions, you will have to live with how it turned out, instead of being stuck in the past and how it could had been.

In a lifetime, everyone will face challenges that will leave you with guilt in your heart.Guilt from treating a friend or a close person terribly, failing school, and not training hard enough for a sport that one has loved. To fix those past memories people will try finding a way to redeeming themselves, which can make up for their guilt. A Brazilian internet explorer Eduardo once said, “True redemption is seized when you accept the future consequences for your past mistakes .”As Eduardo explained, the only way seek true redemption is to going on in your life and fix your past mistakes.For example in wrestling some meets against other teams can come down to one match and the wrestler who loses that match just gave that team a close loss.

Guilt and regret are two very powerful words in which fits the description about this essay by Staples. For some it’s never really easy to escape your past especially when there’s so much regret that you feel when you think about all the people that was in your life during your childhood. For Staples the memory of his childhood was brought on by the devastating news of the death of his younger brother and the irony to me reading this essay was that the sadness didn’t come entirely from just his death but from the “stereotypical” way a young black man dies. Staples felt that even being from a poor background you have a way to escape, to break the chain of “how you’re raised is how you live type of upbringing”. This essay was written by Staples

People always tend to regret things on their death beds, they mainly regret the idea that they never actually lived their life to their extent, they wish for another chance to be able do the things that they were told they couldn't do and were too afraid of doing, like Henry David Thoreau said “ I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately”. He’s saying that he was tired of the city life and never had the chance to really experience how it was to actually survive, he did what he was missing out on. Henry David Thoreau’s poem “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” (1854) claims that “There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself