A Life Worth Living

Recently I was asked by a colleague, "Smye, what is your goal in life? If you had to pick one thing, what would it be?"

I didn't hesitate for even a second, I knew my answer, though it sure as hell surprised him.

"Well," I said. "There's really only one thing I want out of this life, hypothetical or not. I want to be on my death bed, to look back on my life and say to myself and to anyone in the room, 'Yes. That was a life worth living!.' And then, die peacefully."

For those wondering - no, I'm not suicidal, not even close. When I say I yearn for my deathbed, in no way to I mean that I want to be there now. Just that when I get there, I want to admire the life I've lived.

Do I think I've lived a life worth living so far? Yes. Yes I do. But I also see, thus far, a life full of regrets. And I struggle to have grace for myself through those regrets for anything within the most recent handful of years. It's as though I can look at the poor choices child-Smye made, even young-20's-Smye. But recently? Those regrets are strong.

What's curious is that those regrets are, in fact, based in decisions I've made with the very best of intents, with the goal of living that life worth living, of choosing the kind of human I want to be. I just didn't have the requisite knowledge and made the wrong choice. It was the right choice with the information I had at hand... but now, with more information a long while later, I realized that, perhaps, it was the worst mistake of my life. To be clear, there's no self-loathing, I completely understand why I made the decision(s) I made... but I am filled with agonizing regret. And so I continue to do my damnedest with the full knowledge that even so I will hurt those I love and hurt myself along the way... and that has to be okay.

What about you? What are your goals for this one simple life we each get? And how do you handle regret?