Hi Reader,

I often hear people (not me specifically) ask people (also not me specifically) if they have any regrets. If I were the one being asked this question (which I am now asking myself, so I'm both peoples), this is what I'd answer:

Of COURSE I have regrets. Dumb shit I did, mistakes I made, stuff that didn't go the way I wanted, and stuff I wanted that I didn't get. Basically, I've messed up (or been messed up by) lots of things while I've been around.

At the same time, ALL of the messes I've wound up in have turned out to be rich sources of insight into myself and life. It's not like I enjoy cleaning up messes (or like I've cleaned them all up yet), but there is something about the process of cleaning up a mess where I inevitably find something valuable, something I didn't know I had, something I thought I'd lost. Sometimes I have to find something over and over and over to really remember for real that I have it and figure out somewhere safe to keep it so I won't keep losing it in the messes.

See, life happens on two levels. There's the "outside" level, which is easy to see. This is the level where I do the laundry and feed the kids breakfast and sit down to work (or poop, or type this newsletter). It's the tasks of life, the physical objects and actions I can point to.

Then there's the "inside" level, which is harder to talk about. It's the level of my being, my becoming. It's hard to talk about because it doesn't language well, but it's also hard to talk about because when I "go there," I bump into lots of emotions, and when I'm feeling lots of emotions it's hard to talk (or write). In fact, when I go inside, I often find myself looking for any excuse to go back outside. Work and phone notifications are really good for this. (Or bad, depending on how you look at it.)

Anyway, the point is that all of the messes in life happen on the outside. This level of life is important, because if you don't succeed here, things might go so badly you could die from it. In fact, everyone who has ever died has done so because of the stuff that happened outside. So, yeah: regrets aplenty. If I knew then what I know now, I'd probably be in a better place!

But I wouldn't be, like, more alive. I've done well enough, or gotten lucky enough—or some combination of the two—that I haven't died yet. And because of that, every mess I've been through can also be seen as an opportunity to dig something up from inside, wash it off, and see it more clearly.

The failed relationship can help me see how selfish and needy I was being.

The embarrassing story can show me where I was naïve and impetuous.

The unfulfilled dream can teach me what I truly care about.

And so on.

And I know those words—selfish, needy, naïve, impetuous—sound bad from the outside. Maybe they are. But from the inside, they're all totally understandable. How could I be anything other than selfish, needy, naïve, and impetuous? All are ways of being that I must necessarily go through as a being living a human life. I will inevitably go through them again and again in my remaining years. Seen from the inside, nothing is wrong. Nothing is unacceptable. Everything is a part of the journey, and every journey is unique and fundamentally acceptable.

I don't always see that clearly, but when I do, I also see that the outside level could be seen as a reflection of the inside. That even though it seems like stuff is going wrong, that can't possibly be the case, because everything is fundamentally acceptable. Exactly as it should be.

So, yeah, I have regrets. But I don't have any regrets about having regrets. That is, I don't have any regrets (inside) about having regrets (outside).

If there's one real regret I have, it isn't about what I do or don't do or did or will do. It's just that I lived and have to die and regret that I can't go on living. Inevitably, I'll arrive at the end of my life thinking, "man, that went fast." And the only stand I can take against that inevitability is to try to notice as fully as possible, right now, what it's like to be a part of life itself.

I hold the same wish for you, friend.