A few days ago, I found a photo on Facebook that encourages people to spend more time with those they love, saying that "one day, you'll say either 'I wish I had' or 'I'm glad I did.'" The funny thing is that that's true for just about any good thing we could do. We get opportunities to do good all the time, and one day, we're going to look back and remember whether we took those opportunities or not. When I look back on my life, I want to be able to remember that I did as much good as I could have. I want to look back with gratitude toward my past self, rather than regret.I'm going to try to let that desire influence my decisions. Human nature is to make decisions based on how you feel in the moment. Wise men make decisions based on how they're going to feel about those decisions later. Some people make bad choices simply because they weren't thinking ahead.
I want to think ahead more and make decisions based on how I'll feel about those decisions later. Some times, I think that heaven and hell aren't places where we get special rewards or punishments to make us either happy or miserable. I think heaven and hell are places where we can spend a lot of time thinking about what we think of ourselves. There, we can either be proud of ourselves for the good decisions we've made, or upset with ourselves for the bad decisions we've made. We get to choose, but the tricky part is that we have to make the decisions now, long before the benefits or regret kick in.
It's hard to maintain an eternal perspective, but it's worthy trying, mostly because I know I'm going to regret it if I don't.
1 comment:
Amen!
I think that hell will be knowing the opportunities we let pass, the pain that we caused or did nothing to stop, the rich relationships that we could have had but didn't nourish - all those things and more for which we did not repent.
Thinking about whether we will feel gratitude or regret later may be a good measuring stick when we make decisions.
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