No Regrets

Another year is ending, and a new one is soon to begin. We are at a point when our hearts brim with hope and fear, with anticipation and apprehension. How the coming year will turn out to be, we can only, for now, wish for the best. Even as we know there will be hardships, we wish these will strengthen us, and not crush us. Life may be all the same next year, or it will be something else. No one knows for sure. The future is our greatest mystery, our biggest challenge. The unknown can either inspire or scare us. Some may be fired up to do their best, others may recoil in fright and resignation.

With hope, tomorrow looks bright with new prospects of joy and happiness. With fear, it looms with threats of pain and sorrow. Good thing, we can choose what we see.

It is said that our fate is what we make of it. There is no doubt that life embraces potentials for both good and bad, for success and failure, for everyone. We are free to dream. Yet there is more to life than dreaming. Even a chronic dreamer spends most of his time in wakefulness. And the only way, perhaps, to fully experience a dream is to bring it to waking reality.

Still, no matter how hard we will try, there's no assurance we will realize our hearts' desires. Nonetheless, we must try. Who knows? There's no other way to discover what our own efforts will yield but to try. And this may be what the New Year is about-a chance to try our luck yet one more time, every time. And we shall not grow tired of trying. Even if it seems that nothing comes out of it. Life, they say, is a journey, not a destination. The very experience we have of actively participating in the process of living shall be reward enough. An active life is an antidote to boredom and loneliness, no to mention that it is also a fertile ground for potential progress.

Living may be likened to a time in the kitchen. We have access, more or less, to the same ingredients, with the same opportunity to make something. What we each make of these is up to us. Some will cook up delicious treats out of simple vegetables. Others will make terrible dishes from quality meats.

Yet those of us who lack the culinary know-how and end up with bad dishes may still gain something valuable from the whole experience. We may have to bear with the terrible taste of our own cooking and, from that, make the resolve to do better next time. The lingering bad taste in our mouth is a constant reminder for us not to commit the same mistakes again.

In the end, a year is neither bad nor good, by itself. It's how we spend the days that makes them memorable or regrettable. Yet so long as we learn something from it, even a year of failure and adversity is not totally worthless. The learners will always look back to the past with no regrets. (E-MAIL: [email protected])