Most of Life is WASTED on Regret, Loneliness, Powerlessness!

[Winston]

I've been wanting to RANT about this for a long time!

Have any of you ever noticed something that SUCKS about life? It seems that most years and decades of life is spent WASTED on REGRET, LONELINESS, WAITING, DISAPPOINTMENT, POWERLESSNESS, NOT getting what you want, HOPING for a better tomorrow, etc. That really SUCKS doesn't it? Every time I think about it, my blood boils and I feel depressed.

Even when you get what you want, it only lasts for a while (too short of a while that is) or it comes when you are too old to enjoy it (ala Murphy's Law), or isn't what you thought it was so you don't want it anymore. The universe tends to go AGAINST your wishes most of the time when it comes to big things.

Even when you succeed, you STILL REGRET all the years and decades that was spent WASTED in powerlessness and NOT LIVING the way you want and the way you SHOULD be! So there's still SUFFERING from regret!

So even if I met the girl of my dreams tomorrow and married her, I still can't live happily ever after because I would still be CURSING GOD for all the decades that I lost in loneliness and lonely nights with no love or sex and being POWERLESS to do anything about it! Nothing sucks more than REGRET! f**k! I simply CANNOT ACCEPT so much wasted time, so much wasted years and decades in loneliness that SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN! It's UNACCEPTABLE to me. Even if I try to accept it, I can't! That's the main problem.

Every day that goes by in loneliness and lovelessness and sexlessness eats away at my heart and soul and I do NOT accept it and CANNOT ACCEPT it. It causes so much intense SUFFERING! LOTS AND LOTS OF SUFFERING!

And no amount of New Age light or confidence or self-esteem building can change one iota of that.

After MILLIONS and MILLIONS of times of disappointment from seeing hot girls I like walking by and never seeing them again and never having them, it makes me SUPER JADED and SUPER RESENTFUL! So many wasted chances and opportunities. MILLIONS of them! UNACCEPTABLE!

Any of you feel the same?

Doesn't that SUCK? Isn't that the worst thing about life, to waste years and decades of your life feeling POWERLESS like your hands are tied? What a WASTE! Regret is the worst emotion! What's the point of waiting and waiting for a better tomorrow while time goes by WASTED, instead of being happy and having the love you want? Even if you get the love you want, what about the many years wasted from waiting and waiting? Where's your compensation for that? Where's your compensation for damages and wasted time?!

Furthermore, what's the point of making a living if you don't have the love you NEED or the sex you NEED and are unhappy and are constantly DEPRIVED? f**k that! Why expend energy into working hard if you aren't happy? Why does America expect you to work hard and work happily, if you aren't happy or loved? It's f***ing stupid. America is so f***ing stupid I swear to God.

America, and Chinese societies too, expect you to work as a HAPPY SLAVE even if you aren't happy and don't get the love and sex that you NEED! STUPID! So f***ing stupid! If I'm unhappy, why would I be motivated to expend lots of energy into work as though I'm going it for a wonderful grand purpose, when in reality it's just helping to make other people rich? SO STUPID AND SENSELESS!

There is NO VIRTUE in work just for the sake of work itself, especially if you are unhappy and frustrated and DEPRIVED of your romantic and sexual needs. Why doesn't America understand that? So f***ing stupid, I swear!

Sorry for the rant. I've been wanting to get all this out for a long time. It's been boiling up inside me. Do any of you ever feel enraged by the same thoughts? I HATE It when every day that goes by feels WASTED! After a while it eats you up and pisses you off big time!

[Ghost]

.

[Adama]

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

[Adama]

So even if I met the girl of my dreams tomorrow and married her, I still can't live happily ever after because I would still be CURSING GOD for all the decades that I lost in loneliness and lonely nights with no love or sex and being POWERLESS to do anything about it! Nothing sucks more than REGRET! f**k! I simply CANNOT ACCEPT so much wasted time, so much wasted years and decades in loneliness that SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN! It's UNACCEPTABLE to me. Even if I try to accept it, I can't! That's the main problem.

Every day that goes by in loneliness and lovelessness and sexlessness eats away at my heart and soul and I do NOT accept it and CANNOT ACCEPT it. It causes so much intense SUFFERING! LOTS AND LOTS OF SUFFERING!

Winston, you can not rush things. Maybe you weren't psychologically ready in the past? Maybe things weren't in the right order. Or just maybe, you simply didnt get off your butt to get what you want.

When you get what you want, do not curse God (in fact, don't ever do that, cause He is real, He knows your heart). When you get what you want, get down on your knees and THANK GOD for giving you your heart's desires.

Do not spend time saying "Woe is me," after God has given you want you want. That is the time to rejoice. That is not the time for sorrow. It is also the time for thanksgiving. To give thanks.

And what is the point of thinking of all that misery once you've gotten what you want? The more you think of the misery, the more you are re-living it. Studies even show now that the more you think of hurtful things in the past, you are actually injuring your brain through some weird kind of cytokine inflammation the cells release. Can you believe that?

And who knows? Maybe God will lengthen your life if you are grateful and ask? Maybe He will compensate you in some other way you can't even think of at the moment. Dont worry about all the years.

[Winston]

Pretty much sums up my life until 3 years ago. Regret is a terrible master to live under, but it's not so easy to leave him. Anger is only the beginning of it. I just thought of this: have you ever noticed that the world literally seems darker when under a deep depression? When I have been in such a state, I've noticed that even a brightly lit room or sunny day seems dimmer than usual. Loneliness and depression can affect perception, f***ing with you in ways you can't control. A society that inflicts loneliness and celibacy and depression on men is worse than one than inflicts direct violence. Destroy the body and you snuff out a life; destroy the mind and soul and you create something monstrous that can't be controlled forever.

I'd like to think that someday humanity will just somehow learn from all this, but I don't hold out hope for it.

Yeah it reminds me of the Dark Knight movie where the Joker says that it's better to turn a white knight like Harvey Dent into a monster than just kill him. Somehow there's more glory for the dark side in that.

Yeah I've noticed when you are depressed that everything appears dimmer, and all your happy memories suddenly seem unreal, like they were an illusion all along. Have you experienced that too? It's as if happiness is an illusion and depression and suffering was the true reality. That's how you feel when you are depressed and at rock bottom. Ever experience that?

But like Michael Tsarion says, we all have to go through "the dark night of the soul" in order to become stronger, just like a sword cannot be a good sword unless it goes through the fire of the swordsmith's shop.

Also, one's identity and legacy is often defined by one's enemies. For example, Winston Churchill considered Hitler to be his enemy. However, if it wasn't for Hitler, then Churchill would never have received his life's glory of being the strong leader that saved England from invasion. So Churchill's identity, greatness and legacy was defined by his opposition to an enemy. In that sense, an enemy is almost like a friend in that he defines you and you wouldn't exist without him.

Likewise, if it wasn't for the evils of America, our identity here would not exist either. Funny how paradoxical that is huh?

Sorry for the deep rant again.

[Winston]

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

Which Bible verse is that? Did Paul write that? Isn't it saying that it's better to be single? Then what about a man's sexual and romantic needs? What about a sex addict's needs?

It is true though, that if you marry, you will give up your freedom of individuality. You cannot grow your soul while raising a family or tending to your wife's needs. And you will have to give up most of your life's goals after marriage too. But conversely, you cannot experience a stable love and romance and companionship without a lifelong partner either. So life is often like being between a rock and a hard place, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

You either live for your soul and sacrifice the needs of your body (sex), or you satisfy your body but give up the needs of your soul. There's a saying "To be alone is a waste of the body. To not be alone is a waste of the soul."

[Winston]

So even if I met the girl of my dreams tomorrow and married her, I still can't live happily ever after because I would still be CURSING GOD for all the decades that I lost in loneliness and lonely nights with no love or sex and being POWERLESS to do anything about it! Nothing sucks more than REGRET! f**k! I simply CANNOT ACCEPT so much wasted time, so much wasted years and decades in loneliness that SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN! It's UNACCEPTABLE to me. Even if I try to accept it, I can't! That's the main problem.

Every day that goes by in loneliness and lovelessness and sexlessness eats away at my heart and soul and I do NOT accept it and CANNOT ACCEPT it. It causes so much intense SUFFERING! LOTS AND LOTS OF SUFFERING!

Winston, you can not rush things. Maybe you weren't psychologically ready in the past? Maybe things weren't in the right order. Or just maybe, you simply didnt get off your butt to get what you want.

When you get what you want, do not curse God (in fact, don't ever do that, cause He is real, He knows your heart). When you get what you want, get down on your knees and THANK GOD for giving you your heart's desires.

Do not spend time saying "Woe is me," after God has given you want you want. That is the time to rejoice. That is not the time for sorrow. It is also the time for thanksgiving. To give thanks.

And what is the point of thinking of all that misery once you've gotten what you want? The more you think of the misery, the more you are re-living it. Studies even show now that the more you think of hurtful things in the past, you are actually injuring your brain through some weird kind of cytokine inflammation the cells release. Can you believe that?

And who knows? Maybe God will lengthen your life if you are grateful and ask? Maybe He will compensate you in some other way you can't even think of at the moment. Dont worry about all the years.

But you don't understand. Murphy's Law is more powerful than God is. I see Murphy's Law at work more often than the hand of a good deity at work. Murphy's Law must be more powerful. You forget something. A lot of people often get what they want only when it's too late to enjoy it. You even see this in movie plots.

How do you know God is real? The Bible is just a series of books and text and does not prove anything. Neither do the words of your church prove anything. If the church or Bible told you that I looked like Britney Spears, would you believe it? Words do not create reality, and authority does not create truth.

Do you realize your DOUBLE STANDARD here? You say that you should thank God when something good happens but you can't curse him when something bad happens. Why is it that when an athlete wins a game, he thanks Jesus, but when he loses, he cannot curse Jesus? Isn't that a double standard? You are being unfairly biased toward God, who by all accounts and all evidence, is highly imperfect and not the perfect being you imagine at all.

I have OCD symptoms which cause me to keep repeating the past in my mind like a broken record. But hey, if you go to church, the pastor will repeat the story of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross everyday in his sermon, like one who is obsessively repeating the past with OCD too. lol

Yeah maybe I should read the book of Job for comfort, even though the plot in it is senseless.

But you have another double standard here. Most of the great figures in the Bible were martyred, and a martyr's death is considered glorious in the Bible. Do you agree with that? How do you know if God's plan for you to is to be a martyr or not? What if it is? You imagine that God only wants good things for you, but the Bible stories do not support that.

Christianity has hundreds of contradictions, imponderables and things that don't make sense. That's why sensible people say it's better to take the Bible stories as allegories than as literal truths or historical records. If you do that latter, you run into all kinds of problems that make you go crazy.

[chanta76]

Winston.

I understand ..actually I think with Asian American guys we are more bitter than other groups of guys . It took me into my 30's to finally kind of get dating and I did get married but the years of being lonely and experience rejection is still there . It's like the scars of growing up never really went away.

[Adama]

But you don't understand. Murphy's Law is more powerful than God is. I see Murphy's Law at work more often than the hand of a good deity at work. Murphy's Law must be more powerful. You forget something. A lot of people often get what they want only when it's too late to enjoy it. You even see this in movie plots.

How do you know God is real? The Bible is just a series of books and text and does not prove anything. Neither do the words of your church prove anything. If the church or Bible told you that I looked like Britney Spears, would you believe it? Words do not create reality, and authority does not create truth.

Do you realize your DOUBLE STANDARD here? You say that you should thank God when something good happens but you can't curse him when something bad happens. Why is it that when an athlete wins a game, he thanks Jesus, but when he loses, he cannot curse Jesus? Isn't that a double standard? You are being unfairly biased toward God, who by all accounts and all evidence, is highly imperfect and not the perfect being you imagine at all.

I have OCD symptoms which cause me to keep repeating the past in my mind like a broken record. But hey, if you go to church, the pastor will repeat the story of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross everyday in his sermon, like one who is obsessively repeating the past with OCD too. lol

Yeah maybe I should read the book of Job for comfort, even though the plot in it is senseless.

But you have another double standard here. Most of the great figures in the Bible were martyred, and a martyr's death is considered glorious in the Bible. Do you agree with that? How do you know if God's plan for you to is to be a martyr or not? What if it is? You imagine that God only wants good things for you, but the Bible stories do not support that.

Christianity has hundreds of contradictions, imponderables and things that don't make sense. That's why sensible people say it's better to take the Bible stories as allegories than as literal truths or historical records. If you do that latter, you run into all kinds of problems that make you go crazy.

That's because you don't know the Lord. You think you know Him. You only know what the popular culture wants you to know about God and Jesus. So you're running on the incorrect foundation, which gives you all the wrong ideas about Christianity.

Either God is all powerful or He is not God, by definition. Would you agree with that? God is all powerful, even more than your false god Murphy's Law. Murphy's Law could just be what you have done wrong in the past rearing its ugly head to take vengeance upon you. Or it could just be your failure to make things work.

I know God is real because I see, believe and recognize the power of God. Most of you skeptics will say I simply have confirmation bias, but you'll never really know for sure until after you die. Then it will be too late, cause the door is shut at the moment of your death, and there will be no return to change your mind. Once you believe, God will reveal the truths of the Bible to you. You know how you said there are multiple levels to reality? The same is true in the Bible. You can see there are multiple lessons from every story in the Bible for us to learn. Only when you get deep into the book will understand that this is real.

Do you really believe the world got here because a pinpoint of nothingness exploded in a microsecond to create everything you see? Do you believe an explosion of nothingness into everything is possible? That is the Big Bang theory. Let me tell you, that violates many of the known theories of physics and thermodynamics. This world isnt here by accident. There is a Creator. I suggest you acknowledge Him so that He can work within you to reveal the truth to you.

There is no double standard. That is fearing and honoring our Creator. Besides that, you do not know if He is the source of your problems. It could very well be you are eating the fruit of your own actions (or even your parents, grand parents or great grandparents, sorry). It could also be someone else's sin. But, if you were a child of God, these problems would eventually work out in your favor, but because you are a non-believer, you're pretty much on your own. I dont think God is really interfering to bring bad things into people's lives unless their sowing and reaping has cause it on their own. And if someone had the ultimate power over you, would you really curse Him? Would that ever make sense to piss someone off who has the ultimate power? Or would you rather do your best to do what He tells you to do, so that you don't get punished?

I do not think it is God's plan for everyone to be a martyr. Let's think about it for a second. If there are millions of believing Christians worldwide, what percentage of them do you think will be martyr for Christ? Even if they were, their rewards would be great in heaven, and yes He commands us to rejoice if we are punished for His sake for that very reason. That isnt asking you to sacrifice your life. That is telling you that if you do have to, you will be fully rewarded in heaven. Do you see the difference?

The Book that you should read first is the book of John. Read that book until you understand it. Then we'll chat about it.

I dont even know who you are talking about being a martyr. Did you ever hear of Daniel in the Lion's den? Did you hear about Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, how they were in the furnace but didnt burn? How Jesus was in there with them? How can you say that everyone had to die for Christ when in fact he was protecting His saints?

Some of the ones who died terrible deaths were the ones who were disobeying God's will repeatedly. King Saul repeatedly disobeyed God in the OT. So did Samson. The path of obedience is the key to God's blessing. What do you think disobedience brings? He tells you: Death.

Christianity has hundreds of contradictions, imponderables and things that don't make sense. That's why sensible people say it's better to take the Bible stories as allegories than as literal truths or historical records. If you do that latter, you run into all kinds of problems that make you go crazy.

There are absolutely no contradictions whatsoever in the King James Bible. Not one. There are some things that man will never understand, but most of the misunderstanding comes from the fact that you have not believed in Jesus as Savior. Once you're saved, the Holy Ghost illuminates the truth of the Bible for you, but it can not do that before you get saved.

[Ghost]

.

[Jester]

But you don't understand. Murphy's Law is more powerful than God is. I see Murphy's Law at work more often than the hand of a good deity at work. Murphy's Law must be more powerful. You forget something. A lot of people often get what they want only when it's too late to enjoy it. You even see this in movie plots.

How do you know God is real? The Bible is just a series of books and text and does not prove anything. Neither do the words of your church prove anything. If the church or Bible told you that I looked like Britney Spears, would you believe it? Words do not create reality, and authority does not create truth.

Do you realize your DOUBLE STANDARD here? You say that you should thank God when something good happens but you can't curse him when something bad happens. Why is it that when an athlete wins a game, he thanks Jesus, but when he loses, he cannot curse Jesus? Isn't that a double standard? You are being unfairly biased toward God, who by all accounts and all evidence, is highly imperfect and not the perfect being you imagine at all.

I have OCD symptoms which cause me to keep repeating the past in my mind like a broken record. But hey, if you go to church, the pastor will repeat the story of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross everyday in his sermon, like one who is obsessively repeating the past with OCD too. lol

Yeah maybe I should read the book of Job for comfort, even though the plot in it is senseless.

But you have another double standard here. Most of the great figures in the Bible were martyred, and a martyr's death is considered glorious in the Bible. Do you agree with that? How do you know if God's plan for you to is to be a martyr or not? What if it is? You imagine that God only wants good things for you, but the Bible stories do not support that.

Christianity has hundreds of contradictions, imponderables and things that don't make sense. That's why sensible people say it's better to take the Bible stories as allegories than as literal truths or historical records. If you do that latter, you run into all kinds of problems that make you go crazy.

That's because you don't know the Lord. You think you know Him. You only know what the popular culture wants you to know about God and Jesus. So you're running on the incorrect foundation, which gives you all the wrong ideas about Christianity.

Either God is all powerful or He is not God, by definition. Would you agree with that? God is all powerful, even more than your false god Murphy's Law. Murphy's Law could just be what you have done wrong in the past rearing its ugly head to take vengeance upon you. Or it could just be your failure to make things work.

I know God is real because I see, believe and recognize the power of God. Most of you skeptics will say I simply have confirmation bias, but you'll never really know for sure until after you die. Then it will be too late, cause the door is shut at the moment of your death, and there will be no return to change your mind. Once you believe, God will reveal the truths of the Bible to you. You know how you said there are multiple levels to reality? The same is true in the Bible. You can see there are multiple lessons from every story in the Bible for us to learn. Only when you get deep into the book will understand that this is real.

Do you really believe the world got here because a pinpoint of nothingness exploded in a microsecond to create everything you see? Do you believe an explosion of nothingness into everything is possible? That is the Big Bang theory. Let me tell you, that violates many of the known theories of physics and thermodynamics. This world isnt here by accident. There is a Creator. I suggest you acknowledge Him so that He can work within you to reveal the truth to you.

There is no double standard. That is fearing and honoring our Creator. Besides that, you do not know if He is the source of your problems. It could very well be you are eating the fruit of your own actions (or even your parents, grand parents or great grandparents, sorry). It could also be someone else's sin. But, if you were a child of God, these problems would eventually work out in your favor, but because you are a non-believer, you're pretty much on your own. I dont think God is really interfering to bring bad things into people's lives unless their sowing and reaping has cause it on their own. And if someone had the ultimate power over you, would you really curse Him? Would that ever make sense to piss someone off who has the ultimate power? Or would you rather do your best to do what He tells you to do, so that you don't get punished?

I do not think it is God's plan for everyone to be a martyr. Let's think about it for a second. If there are millions of believing Christians worldwide, what percentage of them do you think will be martyr for Christ? Even if they were, their rewards would be great in heaven, and yes He commands us to rejoice if we are punished for His sake for that very reason. That isnt asking you to sacrifice your life. That is telling you that if you do have to, you will be fully rewarded in heaven. Do you see the difference?

The Book that you should read first is the book of John. Read that book until you understand it. Then we'll chat about it.

I dont even know who you are talking about being a martyr. Did you ever hear of Daniel in the Lion's den? Did you hear about Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, how they were in the furnace but didnt burn? How Jesus was in there with them? How can you say that everyone had to die for Christ when in fact he was protecting His saints?

Some of the ones who died terrible deaths were the ones who were disobeying God's will repeatedly. King Saul repeatedly disobeyed God in the OT. So did Samson. The path of obedience is the key to God's blessing. What do you think disobedience brings? He tells you: Death.

Christianity has hundreds of contradictions, imponderables and things that don't make sense. That's why sensible people say it's better to take the Bible stories as allegories than as literal truths or historical records. If you do that latter, you run into all kinds of problems that make you go crazy.

There are absolutely no contradictions whatsoever in the King James Bible. Not one. There are some things that man will never understand, but most of the misunderstanding comes from the fact that you have not believed in Jesus as Savior. Once you're saved, the Holy Ghost illuminates the truth of the Bible for you, but it can not do that before you get saved.

GREAT essay, Adama. Succinct yet complete.

Thanks!

[traveller]

I've been wanting to RANT about this for a long time!

Have any of you ever noticed something that SUCKS about life? It seems that most years and decades of life is spent WASTED on REGRET, LONELINESS, WAITING, DISAPPOINTMENT, POWERLESSNESS, NOT getting what you want, HOPING for a better tomorrow, etc. That really SUCKS doesn't it? Every time I think about it, my blood boils and I feel depressed.

Even though I live in Florida now, I do often feel regrets that I didn't move here sooner. Around my 20th birthday, I had a goal that I was going to get a girlfriend and get married sometime during my third decade on the Earth. As it turns out, the goal was allready blown in November 2004 when I realized that the entire state of Illinois is one huge endless social desert, from the shores of Lake Michigan all the way to the Mississippi River. And the more time that elapsed with me still in Illinois, the more I began avoiding women in Illinois. Another big hit was in March 2006, when, during my third field studies trip to Florida, my class had a 6 hour layover at Newark International Airport. We took a field trip into New York City during the layover, the people in New York City were surprisingly friendly and even a bit sociable, and I was literally left with thoughts of; "well, I guess Illinois is now the rude capital of America" and even "New York City is not the rude capital of America at all! Illinois is!" To me, my visit to New York City was exactly like being on board the fictional S.S. Poseidon when the ship was capsized by a rogue wave, only in a more real sense, the ship being capsized was another fictional ship, the S.S. Chicago, and Florida and New York City were two waves coming together and piling into a monstrous "tidal bore" type of wave that struck the S.S. Chicago head on, flipping her completely over upside down. And from then all the way until March of this year, it was like the fictional S.S. Chicago continued to sink lower, bulkheads caving in, more machinery breaking loose, the ship going down by the bow, threatening to go under any minute, with me trapped inside the overturned hull.

In the real world of course, in 2006, I had totally given up on looking for a girlfriend and vowed that "it ain't gonna happen until and unless I first move to Florida!" On Florida trips after my New York City experience, there were times I literally broke down and cried on the plane back to Chicago. And during my last couple years, I began to lose hope that I would make it to Florida, where from my experience, the women are a lot better quality than they are in Illinois, and even had thoughts of self-castration and walking/bicycling around all over the whole Chicago metro area with big homemade cardboard banners saying things like; "Marriage is Idolatry!" "Idolatrers will burn in the Lake of Fire!" "Man has failed the Lord allready in the Garden of Eden, therefore man has forfeited the Earth as well as the right to live and multiply upon the Earth!" and even stuff like; "Women are Satan's demons wearing human flesh!" and "When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, not only did man forfeit the Earth, but womankind divorced mankind, married Satan the devil, and went from being man's helper to being Satan's w---e!"

Well, even though I am in Florida, the fact remains that, alas, marriage never came to me during my third decade of life. In fact, I am now 34 years old, and only about 114 days into my new life in Florida! And even though I have met numerous beautiful young ladies during my new life in Florida, nobody has yet asked me out on a date.

[GoingAwol]

What's wrong Winston? Didn't you discover the key to get women? I mean you made this site (happierabroad). So why not go be happier abroad again?
Having said all of that. yes I can relate to that. Most of my regrets are related to bad decisions in my teens. I wished I would have taken school more seriously and gotten a scholarship to go to college. What did I do instead? I wasted those years hating school and not trying. When I graduated I didn't want to go to college because I was tired of school and have spent the past 6 years working dead end jobs and going nowhere in life, I'm 24 now and just now starting College. If I had made good decisions in my teens I might've already had a good paying job and been happier abroad by now. But now I'm still at least a few years away from that unless I win the lottery or something. lol but on a serious note... I think it's easy to get bogged down in depression and regrets but you have to fight it so you can take action to make life better.You can't change the past. So why not use your mental energy to think of ways to make today and tomorrow better instead?

[RickyRetardo]

At every situation in your life, you did what seemed to make sense at the time.

That's why nobody (and I mean nobody) should spend their life wallowing in regret 24/7. Some regret is necessary so you don't make the same mistake again and again.

But when I look back at all my regrets, I realize that at the time, I didn't think what I was doing would have been regrettable. If I had thought that, I wouldn't have done it.

If you saw a woman you liked and didn't even try to ask her out, obviously there was some reason why you didn't do it.

Maybe the reason is something you can easily identify. Or, maybe the reason is buried in your subconscious and even you don't know what it was.

But there was a reason somewhere. Something consciously or subconsciously told you it was not a good idea. Because if you had truly felt it was a good idea at the time, then you would have done it.

If you keep doing things you regret (or regretting the things you haven't done--same thing really) and don't know why, then the answers almost certainly lie deep in your subconscious.

A lot of neuroscientists believe that almost all (maybe all) of our decisions, to act or not to act, come from the subconscious. It's also generally believed that on a subconscious level, we never forget anything. Anything we sensed or felt, even when we were babies, is seared into the parts of our brain that hold the subconscious mind.

Also, the Book of Job is my favorite book in the Old Testament, by far. I personally read it as a metaphor, not as a meant-to-be-taken-literally story of a personal God choosing to torture some poor guy for the sake of proving a point to Satan (which seems like it would be the work of an extremely cruel God, doesn't it? If we're supposed to look to God as an example for how we should be, a role model, as it were, the lesson would be that we should go around hurting people to prove points to Satan!).

I read it as an allegory saying we should accept the lot we are given in life without rebelling against our circumstances by committing suicide (which Job's wife urges him to do, because she has no faith that things will get better). Instead we should try to work through our problems and have faith that things will work out in the end. What's the alternative? Suicide, basically. So accepting our circumstances and working through them is at least the lesser of two evils.

I also think that if God truly has a plan for you, then you're going to follow that plan. That's why the story of the Garden of Eden does not make sense to me. If God knows everything, he knew that whole "forbidden fruit" thing was going to go down. He knew from the moment he created Adam and Eve (actually even before) that they were going to disobey him. If he knew that for a fact, they cannot logically have actually not eaten the fruit. Because if God knows you're going to do something, you can't not do it. It doesn't add up.

This should be obvious but people still deny it.

If someone (even God) knows that you're going to eat an apple rather than an orange, then what if you use your "free will" to eat the orange?

Obviously that person (or God) didn't actually know you were going to eat the apple after all. Because if that were the case, you wouldn't have eaten the orange.

It's simply illogical to believe otherwise. People will claim "He knew you were going to eat the apple, but you still could have eaten the orange".

That's double-think. It's clearly not correct. Maybe God wants some people to believe things that are obviously incorrect? I can't imagine why, but that idea is not logically impossible. It's a lot more logical than saying "God knows every single choice you're ever going to make, but you can still make other choices", which is clearly and obviously completely wrong because it's self-contradictory.

Also, I agree with you that there is no inherent benefit to work. Work, in and of itself, is not an intrinsic good. It's possible to enjoy work sometimes, and there is an intrinsic good in work you enjoy.

Work that you hate is not intrinsically good. It's bad. You might still have to go through that bad to reach a greater good, but that doesn't mean the suffering you experience during your toil is good in itself. It might make you a stronger person, or it might help you earn money, and that's good. But the suffering itself is not good. There's a difference.

Hunter gatherer societies almost never work as much as modern capitalist societies. They spend the majority of their time playing with their children, having sex, making crafts, and exploring the wilderness. Work (hunting, gathering, making clothes, defending the tribe) is a big part of their lives, but it is not the main part.

They also rarely suffer some of the health problems industrialized people face. They don't eat a lot of sugar, so their teeth usually last well into old age. If they do drugs, it's not an every-day thing (unlike how so many Americans feel they have to take drugs every day to treat their crippling depression which is probably partly caused by being forced into an over-structured society based on work, work, work) so they rarely have addictions. They spend tons of time walking, running, swimming, or lifting heavy things, so they are rarely obese. And they spend time outside constantly, so they don't get Vitamin D deficiency unless they're living on the tundra.

They might not have all the modern benefits we have, but they also don't have the modern problems we have. It's a trade-off. But if you look at what happened to some of them after industrialization, a lot of them couldn't cope. Now some former hunter-gatherer tribes live by working low wage jobs, then they go home to their reservations and drink themselves into oblivion and get fat eating processed pseudo-European food that they didn't evolve to eat.