I ponder a lot. It is too slow to be called thinking. My slow, ponderous thoughts can be better described as pondering. When I ponder my thoughts often turn to the past. Life has been good thus far and I love remembering special moments. My wife walking down the aisle. My children's births and many of their firsts. Praying with my grandmother. Many of the occasions where I had the privilege of introducing a person to Jesus. Walking the streets of New York. Conversations with my mom. The list continues on and on. It is good to treasure our memories.
What memories do you treasure? Ponder on often?
During these musings, I often think about the decisions I made in specific situations. And I second-guess myself. They say hindsight is 20/20 and I do not just question the decisions that led to a negative result. The goal is improvement and I re-visit even the decisions I deem to have been the right ones. Hopefully, this will help me to make better decisions should I ever encounter similar situations.
In this way, I often discover things I could have or should have done in situations. Sometimes I stumble across something I could have attempted or enjoyed in a given situation. But I missed out on it because I was too focussed on a specific aspect or too panicked about another. Thus I often think these words: 'If only...' If only I had done this. Or enjoyed that. Or spent a little more time on that.
It is not a sad train of thought filled with frustrating remorse. It is just a discovery. If only... I could have... That would have been great, but I missed it in the moment.
The lesson I learnt from this is simply this. I can do nothing about the past but I can be more aware in my current moment or situation. It would be awesome if I could discover the things I'm missing while I'm in the moment. To accomplish this it is important to pause every now and then to consider what 'If only' will I discover when I look back on this moment or this situation.
No one will ever be able to have 20/20 vision in any given situation. It may not be fully possible even with hindsight but it would be great to improve my peripheral vision and just be more aware in any situation.
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Dear @reonlouw, thank you for sharing this good thought in your post, as my memories i made almost one month ago this post: https://steemit.com/music/@intellihandling/am-i-only-one-who-cry-on-this-video.
This is related to my childhood and i had a dog too and now i am in the same situation, i would like to buy a new dog for my son and daughter but i am not sure if they can manage because i am long time out in business trip...:((
Hi @reonlouw.
I am not much of one for memories. I am more focused on today and future plans. I think I should probably be more reflective. I'm sure it would do me some good. I sometimes go down memory lane with freewrite. @mariannewest's prompts sometimes get me right back to something I have not thought of in forever.
The memories I have clearest are usually visual - something I saw somewhere I was.
And I do get memories with regrets about things I should have done or said. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. All I can do is hope to improve.
I have similar experiences with @mariannewest's prompts @fitinfun. It has been a very beneficial activity to participate in her daily prompts whenever I can.
I do hope you write a book about your life one day. Not just about the interesting things you have seen and experienced but about how you have chosen to respond to it all. I so enjoy your practical wisdom and amazing inner strength. Many will benefit from exposure to how you think. Following your blog has been a great experience for me thus far.
How nice of you to say that, @reonlouw! I think sometimes of doing a memoir of some type. I know my optimism is rare and I think I might be able to use that as a theme. Maybe I will search through my steemit posts to see if something strikes me. I do not want to ramble on :)
Thanks so much for this reply. You just gave me a nice boost!
If Only
Those two words force me to think and reflect. It's as if the dam of my mind has been broken and thoughts rush out freely. I'm going to share as much as I can here.
One of the things I often tell myself is to let the past remain in the past. It isn't always easy though. Especially when you feel you're going up everyday and you don't have much to show for it.
Of course there have been the good days. Times when I have impressed myself and those around me. But those times are rare and far in between.
These days, I simply focus on making the best decisions. This way, even when I make mistakes, I would be assured that I made the best out of the situation.
Another thing is to be grateful. Really, I've been through a lot and I'm standing. I'm not talking about misfortune. I'm talking about finding myself. I think I lost myself while growing. Some something related to bad company.
I realise I don't know everything. Even when I look back and appraise myself, I know I'm doing that from a limited perspective.
I know all things ultimately work together for good. I only need to trust and do the right thing at the right time.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts @reonlouw
Blessings
I seem to look back on past relationships I have had. Not just the romantic ones, but friendships as well. Somethings I handled well and some I handled poorly. One that still bothers me to this day was a friend who had some mental health challenges and was on and off her meds. I don't feel I supported her as well as I should have. I'd like to think I could do better next time I am faced with that situation.
I try to have too many relationship what ifs because when I look at my three wonderful children I don't think fondly of any scenario that didn't bring them into the world.
Hi friend. very good reflection, good constantly I meditate on the things I did or what I did wrong and I think about improving, sometimes reading self-help books or novels sometimes bring me closer to our reality, what motivates me most is my family, with my children is the best thing that has happened to me, well for now I'm only with my son, since my other two daughters are out of the country, greetings from Venezuela
wao, this week I have read several publications referring to this topic ... will it be a signal? hahaha ... there are things that I have often wondered if I had done such a thing, how would I be right now ??? ... and sometimes they come to my head but I simply do not know ... however, they are things that I use as experience to give advice of what should be done or not done in that situation ... Learn from mistakes, and enjoy good decisions. :)
I love to ponder, but my thoughts typically slip off into the absurd rather quickly. I may start by wondering why my cat has a little pouch hanging off of his round, furry belly, and next thing I know I'm searching the internet for more information about the sexual headgear of dinosaurs and realizing that my cat has more in common with a dino than I ever would have guessed.
Except that it doesn't stop there. I'll find myself in the next hours and days still thinking about that primordial pouch on my cat's belly and pondering how that relates to what we refer to as a beer belly. Are they related? Is a beer belly a survival mechanism for a person who consumes (arguably) too much beer and therefore cannot protect him- or her- self from the hind claws of a leopard otherwise? Whoa...did they even have beer back when we were evolving the requirements to give us beer bellies today? If not beer, than what would they have which would enable such an interesting survival mechanism?
See what happens? Now I'm back to the internet to learn more about evolution, natural selection, and intelligent design. I'm sure they all have interesting things to say about the development of the primordial pouch.
Every night when I go to bed I start with my reflection, sometimes I cry because I long to return to certain moments with people who are no longer there but without a doubt, I thank God for having lived those moments and treasuring them in my heart.
I really liked your publication, I needed to read it. Thank you.
Your publication is very motivating ... This is what life is all about, time goes by so quickly that many times we let go many opportunities that later on we will want them to return but it's too late.
That is why it is so necessary to live to the fullest, doing good but enjoying every second.
I always remember the walks and stories of my grandmother, many of them were horror hahaha but never lacking laughter.
Remember and thank for such beautiful moments, is my favorite activity. I always remember when my daughters learned to walk, to talk, the first day I took them to school ... There are many really special things.
Woow friend you got me thinking. I think that reflecting helps us to discover how many things we have done well and what things are wrong, to learn from mistakes, not to repeat them and continue, to advance to grow as a person and to give our neighbor the best of us ... That is what it is about all.
What a great publication. Yes to motivation.
Nice post.
Looking back and reviewing decisions one takes,some are good while some are bad. The “ if only ” comes in only in the bad decisions.
I never regret making them because i learn from them but it does hurt when it is been remembered.
Think back to the past, when it is happy and happy! Why is it? And a disgusting moment! Why is it? Reflecting myself!
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Hmm...not sure if these will be of any help but I might add some thoughts. IMO, this happens to everyone. I have soo many of these remorses and often think if only...but I gueess it's just the nature of our brains. Want more, think where did we go wrong etc. There's nothing bad about it and running away from those thoughts might actually not be healthy. The trick IMO is how to handle them. I guess there are 2 things to do:
Dunno, I'm just rambling tho :D
Hello @reonlouw
It is very reflective what you say,
you mention that you would like to increase your peripheral vision to be able to perceive more things.
I think it could rather distract us from the importance of the present moment, for some reason even the brain itself, even when thousands of thoughts per minute arise, we only process a few, which we consider important.
However, we can always be aware of more than what we process, our senses capture so much information, that if we focus only on hearing, we understand the perception in the other senses.
Accumulate memories, that is very important, it is definitely what we remember when the years have passed and old age is our reality, we must always give ourselves the opportunity to live new things with our relatives, pets, people we just know, that's what that makes our life meaningful, beyond money, of belongings.
Thank you for opening this wonderful reflection sites.
One of my best memories was of my grandfather feeding a starving dog.It taught me to be compassionate.