Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

Regrets

We will all face regrets throughout our lifetime. To have experienced only one regret is to be lucky, most experience a lot more. I am only 16 and I already have a few regrets. Some of these regrets are choices that, if made the other way, would not actually be beneficial and this is true in many cases. Regrets can eat away at us and leave us questioning. Regrets can ruin a person and are very hard to get over. Basically, regrets are not good.


Regrets can linger for many years and can make us question our every move. Even if we had taken the other choice our life may not have turned out for the better. Sometimes people say they regret not seeing their grandparents pass away when they could have been with them at the end. I myself have been in this position and have decided to stay home simply because my grandfather, though dying, was already gone. He barely recognised any of us and was asleep most of the time. When he was awake he was too much in a haze to even acknowledge we were there at times. So I made the decision not to be there in his final moments and sometimes I regret this decision but know that if I had of gone in there I would have been scarred because he did not die in a pretty way. After 2 years fighting with Cancer it was a relief to see him finally at rest because it meant he was no longer in pain and those last few hours were, as I was told, dreadful and it was one of the worse ways he could have gone. So although some people regret the decisions they make sometimes we need to realise that choosing something else may not have been better. I did not want to remember my Grandfather for what he was towards the end and so some days I regret not being there for the last moments (I did visit him in hospital while he was a little more 'him') but others I am glad I was not there so I did not have tainted memories of him.


Death is a major source of regret. Many people have regrets that are in some way linked to death. Some people regret having an argument with someone that meant you no longer spoke to them. People regret this as it goes on for years without contact and then other person dies and you worry they still think you hate them. People regret not biting the bullet and just apologising because when a person dies they have no chance to do it anymore. Some people also have regrets in the form of "What if... ?" which can leave a person second guessing themselves for years to come. If you continue asking yourself "What if... ?" you are never going to move on with your life and will always be stuck on that one point of time that can no longer be changed. So sometimes we need to stop asking the "What if" and begin to move on with our lives or we will die wondering. Regrets are horrible things yet a world without them would be hard to live in. Regrets define us and without them we would lose ourselves.


May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow.

Friday, 3 May 2013

Taking Things for Granted

Sometimes we take things for granted and we don't actually appreciate what we have until its already gone. Friends come and go but we don't truly appreciate them until we look back and realise what we miss, the same can also be said for Family. Opportunities around us are also often taken for granted and it isn't until we go without it that we realise that what we had was actually something quite special. We are constantly taking things for granted and it takes something like loss to show us what exactly there was to appreciate.

We often take our Friends and Family for granted and we don't even realise it most of the time. Sure, we appreciate our friends but it isn't until they are gone that we realise how much they really meant to us. We think we know how important they are but until you have lost a friend you can't know how much they mean to you. Friends become a part of you (in a way) and when they go it's like a part of you leaves with them. We are always taking our Family for granted and often wish them away. Sometimes families can be so annoying that we just want to leave and never come back. Sometimes we even wish them to just disappear. Then, one day, one member of your family does (inevitably) die, or go away, and then you realise how much they actually meant to you. You realise how important they were and you notice the things that aren't the same anymore. You may have hated what they did with a passion but it isn't until it stops that you realise how you had grown to become attached to them and what they did. Friends and Family are often taken for granted and sometimes we have to lose someone to know how much they really mean to us.


Opportunities and resources around us are also taken for granted. We often don't actually appreciate that we have running water (and that it is hot AND cold) and sanitary living environments. We don't appreciate that we have a roof over our heads and food in our stomach. We don't appreciate that we don't live in constant thirst and that we have electricity. We don't appreciate public transport and education and all the other resources around us that we use on a daily basis yet are often taken for granted. Sure these systems can sometimes be frustrating and incredibly unreliable but at least we have something to be frustrated at. There are many countries who don't even have a public transport system, or adequate education. Many places don't even have running water or electricity. Sometimes we need to be grateful for what we have even though we may not like it because when it's gone, it might not be coming back.



May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!

Tuesday, 30 April 2013

Causing Offence

Causing offence is really easy today. Hell, it's highly probably causing offence right now (especially since I used the 'h' word, you know 'high'). People just need to toughen up (I said 'up', woops) sometimes because they are taking offence to everything. There are, of course, some things that are genuinely offensive and I can see how they get offended. Then there are the people who just go through sites like Facebook looking to be offended. Finally, there are just those people who get offended at everything and it is easier not to say anything so that people don't get offended.


First, the things that are clearly offensive. These are the posts, images and pages going around the internet that are clearly offensive and intended to cause offense. These can be anti-muslim (or any other religion, that was just the easiest term to put "anti-" in front of), sexist or any other offensive thing. Sometimes they are about religion or views but they can often be on interests (such as film, entertainment or games). These can be in the form of a direct attack (like "Harry Potter is crap and it's fans are stupid") or a subtle attack (like "The new union strikes are really stupid, like the boy with the lightning scar"). Sometimes these can offend a large number of people or it just offends a particular group (such as the Harry Potter Fandom).


Now there are the people that seem to go looking to be offended. These are the people who go on Facebook and look through pages that are going to offend them. So if they were a fan of Harry Potter they would go searching through anti-Harry Potter (I chose Harry Potter because it is the 11th most liked page on Facebook [as of January 2013] and shouldn't offend as many people as if I chose the KKK as an example) Pages and would then get really offended and be one of those people who comment on the post to share their anger at it. It is just a bit weird that people go looking to get offended and then complain because they are. It's just a little infuriating some times when you read these comments (besides the fact that they cause an interesting 'debate') and it just takes up some space in the comments section.


Finally there are those things that shouldn't offend anyone but somehow do. I saw a post that was literally "..." and then people in the comments section were having a giant debate about how offensive it was and I just kept scrolling before I lost my mind. Then there was a person who made a post about how the sky was a deep blue and then someone in the comments had a full-out argument saying something about someone dying and it being related to the colour blue (a person hadn't actually died and it was just an analogy, a stupid one). Again, sometimes I'm amazed I haven't lost my faith in humanity yet. I have learnt that some people are incredibly stupid and it just goes to show that even the most innocent of posts can be offensive in some way. Some people just seem to love being offended and sometimes it is just way too easy to cause offence. Some people just need to learn some resilience.

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!