30x30: On Regrets

For some time now, a major tenet of my life has been that if I must have regrets, I'd much rather regret having done something, having tried something, than regret having done nothing.

I don't like thinking about what could have been "if I had only...". It's sad and a poor use of energy. So I'm trying to live in such a way that I need never wonder...or at least rarely wonder. 

I like to know what's on the other side, however promising or however foolish. Maybe it's something spectacular, maybe it's something that will blow up in my face. Maybe it's something spectacular that will eventually blow up in my face, but either way, at least I'll know.

Studying acting and subsequently shaping my life around the pursuit of such a career hasn't exactly been the best choice for security and financial stability, especially in this brave new world of recession, debt, and a level of economic disparity that frankly hurts my feelings. To be fair, no career towards which I've ever been inclined is guaranteed money-maker; writers, teachers, and freelance photographers rarely come out on top of the wealth heap. But I knew that if I didn't at least try to climb the mountain that is a career in art, that it would always loom in the periphery of my life of which I would spend the rest wondering and what-iffing.

So, hell, I starting climbing. No regrets. And if I ever come to a place where it all starts to fall apart, and the ground beneath me gives way, at least I'll know what the mountain was made of, and I'll never need look up and wonder.


Original illustration by Isabella Rotman