Tonight I went to see Relient K at Cat’s Cradle. That brought back some memories. Even though I haven’t been in a few years, I have been to so many shows there. I also realized that it has been over a decade since the first time I saw Relient K. That made me feel just a little old. They played a lot of their older songs, which made me happy, but I was a little disappointed they didn’t play anything from their first album. When they played Mood Rings as their third song, I knew it would be a fun night.
Eventually they got to their title track of their latest full-length album, Forget and Not Slow Down. There is a line in the song that says, “I’d rather forget and not slow down than gather regret for the things I can’t change now.” The song is a good reminder that regret can be a huge hindrance in our lives. There are always things that we can do better. I regret I didn’t take my parents up on their offer to get me piano lessons when I was a kid. I regret I didn’t do a better job running Track 4’s camp (not that it was terrible, but could have been better). In the morning, I’ll probably regret staying up past 1am to write this.
If I dwell on those things, where will it get me? Nowhere. We can’t live in regret and move forward at the same time. The song also says, “I could spend my life just trying to sift through what I could’ve done better but what good do what ifs do.” When I think of living in regret, I think of Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite. He is so convinced that the one game from his high school career is what messed him up that he has done nothing with his life. Paul says in Philippians 3:13, “No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.” We can’t just sit around and ask what ifs. We need to accept sometimes we fall short, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still be great.
But if you insist on asking what ifs, ask this one: What if you just moved on?
until next time…