Don't Look Back With Regrets

When I was a kid I went to the local sea cadet unit. It was a great place to go at the time as the place I lived was fairly run down. Me mum and dad never had much money and so for a small fee I got to do all kinds of things from sailing to adventure training to canoeing and a lot more besides. I honestly feel that the place set me up to be a better person as an adult. I feel as though I have grown up with a healthy respect for other people and an honesty that few of the other kids in my area from the time have. Part of this was obviously down to the good running of the place. A lot of the stuff we did there taught us a respect for other people; friends, family the elderly etc.; and I mean respect in the true sense of the word, not the way it is banded about these days, as in ’respect me because I am bigger than you and I’ll pummel you if you don’t’.
Anyway, the guy that ran the place at the time, Ken Griffith, was, and still is one of the nicest blokes you could ever meet. Unfortunate then that I had to go and visit him in hospital the other day. He is now well into his seventies and unfortunately has recently been diagnosed with cancer of the lower spine and prostate. When I left and joined the Navy in 91, and in the subsequent years in between, I kind of lost touch with him and only rarely saw the guy. So as you could imagine it comes as a shock when someone you only ever remember as strong and relatively fit is dealt a blow such as this.
The same is true of my dad, who two years ago had a stroke and is now, to me at least, a very weak individual. When I was younger I never really got on with him as he was a bit of a bully really. I won’t go into that too much here, but lets just say that we never really got on. Anyway the point being, again that here is another person I know and remember as being fit, untouchable if you like, but who now is a very fragile person.
So in a round about way, what I am getting at is this.
1. I am now at an age that my dad and Ken were at when I remember them being at the top of their game, fit, healthy etc. and that doesn’t seem so long ago to me, therefore…
2. You have to make the most of your life while you can because, although you never know what awaits you round the corner, time will eventually catch you up, and when it catches me up I want to…
3. Look back over my life with as few regrets as I can.
I know that a lot of this is ok in retrospect, and that you are always going to have regrets no matter what you do and which choices you make, but in general I think that if you go with your heart and not be held back or dissuaded by others then you should be ok and at the very least you will only have yourself to blame if things go wrong. What I am trying to say is that I don’t want to get to a certain time in my life and think, ‘oh I could have done that if it wasn’t for so and so’, or ‘it would have been nice to do X, Y or Z, but someone wouldn‘t let me go‘.
Finally, for my part, there are several things in my life that I want to do and will strive to do while I can. One of these is to travel round the world on my bike. Some may think this a pipe dream, but it is something I have wanted to do for years and the desire has never waned, so why not? If I don’t do it then I know one day I will regret it, but at least I will only have myself to blame.