On living a life with no regrets

It is half past three in the morning, and I'm going to talk about life, death, and living here. All of these happening in an update with an irrelevant selfie in Manila city a few weeks back. Mind boggling? You must be new around here... come on in anyway.

I am trying to stick with the promise that I'll write more of such posts. I usually remember my promises only moments before I sleep. Well, before I hit the bed... I'm going to talk about one of my lifelong mantras:

I am guessing most people do have some kind of guiding principles in their lives for whatever course of action they do. It could be - kindness begets kindness, or some other Instagram-worthy quote that I can't jazz up right now. For me, it is quite simple and self-explanatory. This principle underlies all my actions that I've done in my life.

For the longest time, it worked well for me. Life was easy... pre-adulthood, I guess. My major decisions are straight-forward: Do I choose an arts or science stream in junior college? What major should I pursue in University? Should I go for this part-time job? Should I continue to dance?

A few years back, I can confidently declare that I have indeed lived a life with no regrets. Every step of the way, I ensured that I will be able to face any consequence for whatever decision I made. Most of which are characterized by at least one of these features:

1. Mainstream
2. Reversible
3. Similarly chosen by friends/ people I trust

Then, came a series of much more ambiguous crossroads of life: Should I severe all ties with this human? How do I allocate my time? Should I abandon a plan that I've invested in for a long time? Should I join this investment? And et cetera et cetera.

Things get messy, they aren't reversible anymore with apologies or sheer will. It's no longer easy to decide if a decision I've made would result in consequences I cannot handle. But it does not matter whether or not I can 'deal with it', the principle says: as long as I don't regret it, nothing else matters. The only person I had to answer to, is myself. Luckily, I am considerably easygoing - even when I make certain horrifying choices, I choose to live with it, without a grumble.

Because I chose it. And because if I can do it all over again, with the accession that there can never be perfect information due to the chronology of events, I will still do the same. And that's all it matters. Because I can say I've lived a life that I've tried my best to do it in a way I had meant for it to be as such. The ability to steer the wheels of my life... that's my priority.

Life is unpredictable. We all understand that, but we don't really get how we are truly, very susceptible to death. It can happen any minute. Don't keep waiting to resolve a regret in your life. I'm not afraid of the idea of death (maybe, just the pain that comes before it) because I hold onto this principle - because come what may, I've lived a life that I've tried my best in, and shaped it in a way I really want it to be.

I hope I can keep hanging onto this. I have this feeling that it'll just get increasingly difficult to hang onto this idealistic life principle, because hello adulthood! Life only gets messier and more complex, andpotential regrets come in multilayers now.

Am I making sense right now? I'll probably catch you next time on another topic. Till the next 3am-drunk-on-sleepiness-chat. <3