Regret

Is having regrets necessarily a bad thing? It seems to have become a "fad" among young people especially to claim that they have no regrets, or that life is too short to regret anything that you do, because, after all, it was what you wanted at one time. But is it actually even possible to live life and not regret something? Why does "regret" have such a bad connotation? In reality, we all make mistakes, and we all have done things that we wish we could take back or that we would do differently if given the chance to go back. Do we see regret as a sign of weakness? This is not to say that we should live in the past, but we should be able to admit our mistakes, even if only to ourselves. It's OK to have regrets. It's part of what makes us human. If we really had no regrets, then what kind of people would we be? Either we would have to be perfect, which none of us are, OR we would have to be inherently bad people. If you do bad things and you don't regret doing them, doesn't that make you a bad person? So, it follows naturally that a "good" person must have regrets, since no one is perfect.

Freedom

So we are in college to get a "head start" to what is so called life. However, are we really free or just living by our parents wants and desires until we come to the conclusion that we are indeed NOT free. If the main stipulation of freedom is financial independence, and we are still relying on our parents to pay for everything, then what are we truly living for? Is it the dreams of our overachieving parents that have graciously given too much to their children to provide what they see as a "great education" and every oppurtunity in life, or are we just slaving towards the day when we can finally tell our parents goodbye and good riddance. Perhaps we shouldn't let go of our dreams that we once clung to. Some may see the wiser child as one that actually looks out the window and bothers to smell the roses as opposed to one that follows given criteria. Maybe in the end, it is the rebel that triumphs towards a greater bounty and offers a lesson for all scholars. The paradox lies within the child that pulled away from the start by resisting their parents wishes and finally rejecting the parents controls in favor of true freedom. The arguably wise one disowns the parents before they can disown him. In doing so, he asserts his independence and goes into the world knowing full well he might not survive. Is it better to take that risk and find immediate independence or remain shackled to our parents wishes until the day that we have finally paid our dues and earned our independence the safe way after which we can continue the cycle with our own children?