30 Days – Day 3 – “Forgive Myself”

Day Three – Something you have to forgive yourself for.

There isn’t any single one thing that I’ve done that I’ve carried with me every day. No great crimes committed or anyone that I’ve wronged in any huge way, and I’ve never had prescience of anything bad that’s happened to others that I’ve simply chosen to let happen. There’s been no point where I’ve had to choose between two paths knowing that my life would head in one direction or the other as a result and where I’ve chosen the wrong one. Nah, it’s a thousand little decisions, tiny nudges that in themselves don’t constitute anything significant but when all added together show how the course of your life has been changed. I need to stop kicking myself over what I didn’t do, my lack of inaction and laziness. The fact is that it’s the things I’ve done day in, day out that I regret the most.

I regret things like not going to a house party when I was fifteen because the weather was shit and I couldn’t be arsed walking for twenty minutes in cold drizzle. I hate the fact I was lazy and settled in with two girls for the majority of my teenage years. I should have been outside and dragging people out with me instead of sat in watching TV or playing games since the days of fucking Goldeneye 64. I should’ve drank, smoked, fucked and went further off the rails and with a vastly more varied group of people. I’ve never fulfilled my full potential when I know it was well within my capabilities to be sitting here today with a degree tucked under my belt and wishing I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow. Fuck, even the qualifications I got from college a couple of months back I can’t bear to look at, because I know that even though I did better than a lot of people, I didn’t try a fraction of what I could have. They’re a reminder of what I did just for turning up, not for all the effort I put in. And in many ways I regret not realising what I had back then, and maybe for not going along with the crowd a little bit more.

I’ve had this rant before, my legacy of nothing other than a knowledge of various TV series and savegames sitting spread over a pointless hard drive. It’s a pathetic moan, this:

But coming from a guy who isn’t too old to turn it all around, to actually do something instead of withering on the vine. So that’s what I’m doing, I’m hunting rather than looking for work, I’m getting fitter and doing what I can to improve my lot in life. Have I forgiven myself for what I’ve done? Fuck no! Acceptance means peace, and life’s been far too peaceful as it is. I’m looking back with wonderful scorn and a determination not to be like that ever again. Sometimes a little constructive self-hatred is what you need to get yourself going. Fuck loving myself until I’ve done something worthy of doing so.