Who Has't Had A Few?

Regrets.

There are regrets given to parties we cannot attend, regrets without emotional strings attached and regrets that haunt us for the rest of our lives.

Regrets can be minor, like "I regret saying such and such. I did not mean to hurt their feelings."

Or life altering as in, "I regret not marrying that person. How could I have let "the one" get away?"

Unfortunately, regrets sooner or later weave their way into most lives. As hard as we try to avoid making decisions that come back to haunt us, some are utterly unavoidable.

Regrets are often born out of the conflict between your heart and your head. Your wistful heart longs to follow one path while your no-nonsense head blocks the way, insisting it knows best. The two wrestle around within you until one emerges victorious. More often than not it's the logical head, intent on protecting the foolish heart, that makes the rational, safer decisions. Sometimes this can be the best choice, considering we tend to lose ourselves in love when we give free reign to the heart. When the heart runs amok, unchecked, before we know it, we awake in the intensive care unit of relationships, as if coming out of a love coma. Alone, abandoned and scared we are listless after handing over the whole of our hearts only to be rejected ultimately. Suddenly reality sets in and we are left licking our wounds and shaking our heads, slowly but surely regaining our footing to move on.

And move on we must. The alternative is to live a half-life, bobbing through a never ending sea of pain, a mere shell of what was once a vibrant, dynamic being.

And on the contrary, if we tether ourselves in fear of ever encountering pain, we miss out on spontaneous, unbridled joy in life. The paths we follow are riddled with risks. Some we take, some we avoid. Some obvious, some hidden under a mask of illusion. But never rolling the dice with bated breath would be a pretty bland row to hoe.

Therefore, somewhere between head and heart must lie divine fruition. When stars collide and magic happens, tread into it fully with an open heart held loosely in the hands of a permissive, healthy head...