It's funny to look back at all the dumb things you've done and wonder how you got through it all, isn't it?

Like that time you climbed onto the roof of your house and told your cousins you could fly. Or that time you climbed onto the roof of your school because you were messing around with a substitute teacher. Boy, you sure like to climb onto roofs, don't you?

Or maybe that's just me.

Allow me to posit a thought: the sum of all your experiences is you. I think I read that in a fortune cookie once. It's true as blue though. All those dumb things you did, those things you wish you could erase, well, they're you.

Like that time you saw that cute girl that you've had a crush on since, forever. You had a chance to talk to her, maybe spark up a funny conversation and get her number. But instead, you had a conversation with your beer. (Trust me; beer isn't nearly as fun to kiss as a cute girl.)

Or the time you had a fight with a good friend over something really stupid, something you can't even, for the life of you now, remember. And neither can the friend. But so much time has passed now that it's too late to bridge the gap.

Now those experiences are a part of you. Those experiences, those dumb things, are called regrets. Those "Gosh Darn It Why Didn't I Do Something Else Instead?" moments.

They're not particularly bad things, you know… unless you dwell on them and let them eat you up inside. Then they'll be bad things. Like termites hollowing out a log, those dumb things could render you an empty log too, if you let them.

So how do you turn regret into good things? Make them into lessons, into moments that teach you something new. That's the other thought I'd like to posit. (Plus, I like the word posit. Posit posit posit.)

Life is essentially a series of lessons to be learned. We all make mistakes. They're inevitable. Some tiny, some grand, all which you wish you could erase. But you can't. And that's the beauty of it. If you could erase a mistake, you would never gain that life lesson.

Like seeing the cute girl. Now you know to let go of your beer and talk to her. It's better to try and get rejected, than to walk away and regret never having tried at all.

Or the friend you lost. Now you know to be more aware of friend's feelings, or at least to try harder to keep the friendship than to let it lapse.

That's a line I listen to a lot. It's like a Golden Rule to me. It can be extrapolated too: it's better to try and fail at something, than to walk away and regret never having tried at all. It's a rule that can apply to all facets of life. Plus, I learned it after having done many dumb things.

It's not easy to look at a painful mistake and try to draw a lesson from it though. It's much easier to dwell on the mistake. Or try to forget it. Or say you earnestly try to find a lesson in your mistake; what if you don't see one? Or draw the wrong lesson?

I didn't say this was going to be easy. Sorry. Here's what I do: analyze the mistake as objectively as I can, then consider the full range of alternate actions I could have taken. Since I can only control myself, it's no use worrying about how other people could have behaved, so I focus on how I could have made the situation better.

At least, that's what I strive to do. Cute girls, talk to them. Good friends, keep them. And if I don't, take a lesson and be a better person from the inevitable dumb things that I'll do.

Plus, stop climbing roofs so much. It was funny once, but it's not funny anymore. See? A lesson learned! Or maybe that's just me.

. . .

Do you ever look back at all the dumb things you've done?